Goal

Talk about now, the past, the future, and say “not”.

New Grammar

• de marks past.
• go marks future.
• en marks ongoing action.
• ave marks completed action with present relevance.
• no negates the verbal group.
• Mini-ma also has formal negative-indefinite words like nulo-man and nulo-kosa.

Core Vocabulary

Mini-ma	English
de	past
go	future
en	progressive
ave	have, perfect helper
no	no, not
nun	now
tempo	time
dia	day
maten	morning
resi	sleep, rest
nulo-man	nobody
nulo-loke	nowhere
nulo-tempo	never
nulo-modo	in no way
nulo-kosa	nothing

Model Examples

mi i de manja
I ate.

mi i go manja
I will eat.

si i en resi
He or she is sleeping.

mi i ave manja
I have eaten.

tu i no pale
You do not speak.

nulo-man i de veni
Nobody came.

mi i go nulo-loke
I am going nowhere.

mi i kan nulo-modo make a di
I cannot do this in any way.

mi i vole a nulo-kosa nun
I want nothing now.

Guided Notes

• Learn one helper at a time before stacking them.
• Put no early: mi i no pale.
• In helper chains, keep no first: mi i no de kan veni.
• de, en, and go are helpers only in the preverbal helper slot: mi i de en resi.
• After the main verb, the same forms are relation words: buku e en mesa, mi i toma a buku go tu.
• nun can be added when you want to say “now”.
• The nulo-* forms are a formal Mini-ma series parallel to question forms like ke-man and ke-loke.
• nulo-man, nulo-loke, nulo-tempo, nulo-modo, and nulo-kosa cover the common negative-indefinite meanings.

Practice

1. Translate into Mini-ma: “I will sleep.”
2. Translate into Mini-ma: “She is not speaking.”
3. Translate into English: mi i de bibe a kafe
4. Reorder: no / si / i / manja
5. Translate into Mini-ma: “Nobody came.”
6. Translate into English: mi i vole a nulo-kosa nun

Mini Recap

With de, go, en, ave, and no, you can already speak about many everyday situations.