Tetum. A Language For Everyone

A Comprehensive Course Book for English-speaking Learners of Tetum. Tetum (or Tetun) is the lingua franca of East Timor. This book helps speakers of English learn the structure and essentials of Tetum. Each lesson consists of a dialogue, followed by essential vocabulary, grammatical or conversational notes, and exercises. Every opening dialogue contains grammatical or conversational elements and practical examples. At the end of the book, you will find answer keys, a concise phrasebook and a two-way dictionary. After working through this book, you should be in a position to converse and write comprehensibly in Tetum. --- The author, Yohanes Manhitu, was born in the village of Sunu, South Amanatun (Amanatun Selatan), East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia, and grew up in the East Timorese enclave of Oecusse-Ambeno, where he acquired the Tetum language in his childhood. For one year, he served the West Timor-based United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kupang as a translator and interpreter of English, Indonesian, Tetum, and Dawan. He now lives in Yogyakarta and works as a writer, translator, and foreign language instructor. Besides writing dictionaries, language books, short stories, and articles on language and culture, he pens poetry in Indonesian, Dawan, Tetum, English, Esperanto, etc. and enjoys participating in literary activities. «This book has been developed from the simple handouts I prepared in 2006 for teaching my first English-speaking Tetum student. At that time I was in the process of compiling my ’Kamus Indonesia-Tetun, Tetun-Indonesia’ (’Indonesian-Tetum, Tetum-Indonesian Dictionary’), so I included a great deal of dictionary material in the handouts...» (Yohanes Manhitu).