juHDaq QoghtlhiH'u' Kroki is in the house!

[kroki]

tlhIngan Hol jatlhwI'pu' juppu'wI', mu'mey puS yInwIj vIghItlhjaj:
Klingon speaking friends, let me write a few words about my life:

DuSaQ tInDaq ghunwI' jIH.
I am a software developer at a university

DujHommey chenmoH 'e' tIvqu' puqloDwI'.
My son loves to make rockets.

vIghro'mey  qu' tIvqu' puqbe'wI', teH!
My daughter likes fierce cats, really!

ghunwI' ghaHpu' je be'nalwI'.
My wife used to be a programmer too.

DaH puqpu'ma' SaH.
Now she takes care of our children.

yabwIj vIleStah yabwIj vIDubmoHmo'.
In order to improve myself I meditate.

Sajmey DIghajbe'.
We don't have pets

jIQong vitIvbej.
I enjoy sleeping

yInwIj vIQuchchu'.
I'm happy with my life!

boneHchugh mu'meywIj bolughmoH.
feel free to correct my words.


QoghtlhiH'u' ( I am still trying to make up a nice Klingon name, but its a bit hard. Anyway, it's kroki)

[ter'eS]

tlhIngan Hol jatlhwI'pu' juppu'wI', mu'mey puS yInwIj vIghItlhjaj:
Klingon speaking friends, let me write a few words about my life:

"Klingon-speaking friends" would be tlhIngan Hol jatlhlaHbogh juppu' (the -laH is optional).  mu'mey puS yInwIj is "a few word's my life".  However, yInwIj mu'mey puS means "my life's few words".  "About" isn't easy to express.  How about yInwIj Delbogh mu'mey puS "a few words which describe my life". -jaj doesn't mean "let me", it expresses a wish for someone else.  Besides, you're a klingon, why are you asking permission to tell us about your life? Just tell us!

DuSaQ tInDaq ghunwI' jIH.
I am a software developer at a university

DujHommey chenmoH 'e' tIvqu' puqloDwI'.
My son loves to make rockets.

vIghro'mey  qu' tIvqu' puqbe'wI', teH!
My daughter likes fierce cats, really!

ghunwI' ghaHpu' je be'nalwI'.
My wife used to be a programmer too.

DaH puqpu'ma' SaH.
Now she takes care of our children.

All fine.  However, the last sentence says "she is present/cares about our children".  The verb Qorgh means "to take care of, care for" and is probably what you want.

yabwIj vIleStah yabwIj vIDubmoHmo'.
In order to improve myself I meditate.

"my mind, I am relaxing, because I cause to improve my mind."
I think you want -meH "in order to' and not -mo'; these phrases come before the main verb. Dub already means "to improve (something)", so you don't need -moH.  However, since leS is intransitive (as far as we know), "to relax (oneself)", you do need -moH on it.  I'd probably leave off the -taH; it doesn't feel necessary. So: yabwIj vIDubmeH, yabwIj vIleSmoH.

Sajmey DIghajbe'.
We don't have pets

maj "good"

jIQong vitIvbej.
I enjoy sleeping

jIQong 'e' vitIvbej.  Who doesn't? (Extra points for using the correct verb prefixes!)

yInwIj vIQuchchu'.
I'm happy with my life!

Quch is an adjective verb and can't take an object.  How about yInwIjmo' jIQuchchu'? "Because of my life...

boneHchugh mu'meywIj bolughmoH.
feel free to correct my words.

Well, you asked...

[kroki]

ter'eS qatlho' !
Thank you ter'eS

lughchoHghachmeyna'lIjmo' jIQuchchu'
I am happy because of your definite corrections

lugh - be correct
-choH - change in state
-ghach - nominalizer, makes noun out of verb with suffix
giving the new noun lughchoHghach
which can be lengthened with
-mey plural suffix type 2
-na' definite suffix type 3
-lIj  your, suffix type 4
-mo' due to, because of, suffix type 5

Okay, this is a tour de force  ( is that expression known in English?) and it is probable wrong, the use of -ghach is a naDHa'ghach , a  discommendation!
In all the texts in Klingon I searched, rIHtaHghach / energizing process , in the Sons of Klorax Sons, part 3,  is one of the very few example of using -ghach .


QoghtlhiH'u'  / kroki

[ter'eS]

lughchoHghachmeyna'lIjmo'

Very nice! (although I think -choH "change state" should be -moH "cause to be" - there is some semantic overlap between these suffixes, and I always have to stop and think them through.)

One stylistic note: I don't think -chu' "completely" is really the right modifier for adjectives like "happy"; in most cases, I think -qu' "very" is more appropriate.  Although I value my own opinions highly  , I don't think even I can make someone perfectly happy!

As for the use of -ghach, Marc Okrand says its use is rare, and I tend to avoid it as much as possible, and even your example above could be recast as a verb.  This is a good example of the advantage of forming your sentences directly in Klingon, and not translating from your native language.  In English, it is more natural to think of "corrections", but in Klingon, to focus on the act of correcting. BTW, "Sons of Klorax" (which I wrote) is not canon, so should not be taken as definitive regarding -ghach. I used it a lot more in 'uSer Qawlu', but that was a deliberate attempt to echo the ponderousness of much of Edgar Allen Poe's own writing.

[kroki]

Hi ter'eS

While I have been searching for reading and listening material your website provided me with the most usefull stuff really. The movies and the Clorax stories give life to the Klingon language. There are dozens of other Klingon websites, but I didn't find stories and movies anywhere else.  The translation of the Tao Te Ching in Klingon is not really instructive: I have four different translations (from Chinese to English) of that book, but I am really not interested in the Klingon version. Ancient China did not have boarding parties, torpedoes, cloaking devices or chemvah's.
The same is true for the To be or not to be version in Klingon I found, although I must say the sound file sounds great! Ofcourse I have searched through the kli.org site but they have no longer texts with translation, at least I couldn't find them.
So, even if your "Sons of Klorax" is not canon it is all I have got so far.
By the way, at what occasion did Marck Okrand state that the use of -ghach is rare? Not in the addendum of the TKD where he defined it.

QoghtlhIH'u' 

[ter'eS]

Thanks for the comments about my website! I do think I provide some things you can't find anywhere else.  However, there are other sources for stories in tlhIngan Hol, especially the old quarterly journal of the Klingon Language Institute, jatmey.  It used to be available from the KLI website. The KLI also published a web newsletter for a while, Qo'noS QonoS.  See if you can find the back issues on the KLI site.

Be aware also that I didn't go back and correct the grammar of my stories as new grammar rules were revealed, so I can't vouch for every feature of their grammar being 100% correct.  Cross-reference them with my Grammar Addendum; although it is several years old, there have been almost no new grammar developments since I wrote it.

I can't really agree about the Tao Te Ching in Klingon not being useful.  I've been seriously studying Taoism for about a year now, and I find that the Tao Te Ching is sufficiently opaque, and that different translations vary so much, that it is useful to me to approach it from the perspective of a different language. On the other hand, I'm talking about using it to study the Tao; it might not be that helpful for studying the language.

As for the use of -ghach, I believe it came out of an interview with MO that was published in an issue of the KLI's language journal HolQeD.  I don't have access to my set of HolQeD right now, but I'll try to find the exact quote sometime.  He also said in that interview that the use of -ghach all by itself sounds weird, eg. *naDghach, and that some sort of aspect suffix is almost always required.

[Qunchuy]

The KLI also published a web newsletter for a while, Qo'noS QonoS.  See if you can find the back issues on the KLI site.

http://www.kli.org/QQ/ is the direct URL.

I can't really agree about the Tao Te Ching in Klingon not being useful.  I've been seriously studying Taoism for about a year now, and I find that the Tao Te Ching is sufficiently opaque, and that different translations vary so much, that it is useful to me to approach it from the perspective of a different language. On the other hand, I'm talking about using it to study the Tao; it might not be that helpful for studying the language.

The author of the Klingon Tao Te Ching (pIn'a' qan paQDI'norgh) did more than just translate an existing English translation. She did careful study of the original text and various commentaries, and the English version in the book is as much her work as is the Klingon. I overheard Dr. Schoen telling an interviewer about showing a copy of the finished book to a colleague, who commented that the author obviously knows her stuff.

As for the use of -ghach, I believe it came out of an interview with MO that was published in an issue of the KLI's language journal HolQeD.  I don't have access to my set of HolQeD right now, but I'll try to find the exact quote sometime.  He also said in that interview that the use of -ghach all by itself sounds weird, eg. *naDghach, and that some sort of aspect suffix is almost always required.

Using -ghach on a bare verb isn't against any grammatical rules, but it typically results in calling attention to the construction itself rather than the intended meaning.

Excuse the name-dropping, but I was chatting with Marc Okrand last week, and he agreed that -ghach is a rarely-used suffix, and seemed to imply that it's because it's a rarely-needed one.

[kroki]

My point was just that if you want to learn a new language, you do not start with poetic, philosophical stuff. In Italy I got myself a copy of Collodi's Pinocchio to learn Italian, I already had a grammar book and a dictionary. I also got a copy of Il Profeta, the Italian translation of The Prophet of Khalil Gibran. I shouldn't have done that, it is too vague to learn something from and secondly it was originally written in either Persian or Arabic I guess. Anyway, starting to learn Italian with Dante's Inferno is not very smart either, even though Dante "invented" the Italian language. Am I making any sense to my readers?

Back to Klingon.
TKD is both a grammar book and a dictionary so I just needed some text to learn Klingon from, to see the words and rules in action, as it where. And tlhoraQ puqloDpu' lut , the Story of Klorax's sons is perfect for that purpose.

What would be the most important book of mr. Okrand after TKD, by the way?
I captured the 20 minute (60MB) video where mr. Okrand explains how Klingon was created. Now I will never forget jol yIchu! (activate beam) and vIHoH, jISaHbe' (kill one, I don't care). 
QoghtlhIH'u' siging off,
nanoo nanoo ( O , I'm sorry, thats from another planet  )

[Qunchuy]

My point was just that if you want to learn a new language, you do not start with poetic, philosophical stuff.

Indeed. You certainly should not start with trying to write poetic, philosophical stuff, but some people seem to miss that bit of common sense and attempt the...well, if not the impossible, certainly the inadvisable.

...Now I will never forget jol yIchu! (activate beam) and vIHoH, jISaHbe' (kill one, I don't care).

I think you need to work on your memory. 
The correct phrases are jol yIchu' (chu' activate has a ' at the end) and yIHoH (vI- is I (do it to) him, where it should be yI- ((do it to) him! as an order).

[kroki]

I checked the video and ofcourse you are right about the yIHoH !
And the glottal stop, so easy to forget...

[QoghtlhIH'u']

What happened to my account?