…lámes há:we

…if/when he goes hunting

Lámes há:we means ‘…if/when he goes hunting’.

Vocabulary and Pronunciation

• lám – ‘to go’ – sounds like ‘LAMB‘.
• -es – ‘if/when he … – sounds like ‘us‘
• há:we – ‘hunting’ – sounds like ‘HOW-uh‘ (this is the ‘ing‘ form of háwe)

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

Notes:

• The -es ending in this case indicates that ‘he‘ (or ‘she‘ or ‘it‘) is doing the action.  Speakers only use this special form of -es for ‘he‘ when they are talking about a condition such as ‘if‘ or ‘when‘.  So one way to translate lames is ‘if/when he goes‘.
• Note that há:we, with the colon after the vowel, indicates the ‘ing’ form hunting.  You make há:we with slight vowel lengthening (a:), but more importantly with a sharply falling pitch.