Gagana Samoa > The Samoan Language Basics

Articles and Number: Nouns in Samoan

Nouns – those naming words for people, places and things – are usually the first words you learn in a new language. They’re often the easiest words to find, too. Even Google Translate is pretty good with giving us accurate Samoan translations for most everyday nouns.

What Google is not always good at is explaining how to use nouns correctly in Samoan. What article (the, a, an, etc.) do you use in front of a noun? How do you make the noun plural? How does the number (singular or plural) affect the article?

That’s what we’re talking about it in this lesson.

Table of Contents

A Known or Unknown Noun

Let’s use the noun apple as an example. The Samoan word for the is le.

le apu
the apple

As in English, we use the article le (the) when we – the speaker(s) and the listener(s) – know which apple we’re referring to.

When it’s not definite or it doesn’t matter which apple we’re talking about, then the article we use in English is a or an – as in, an apple. In Samoan, it’s se.

se apu
an apple

So, in Samoan, le is the definite or specific article, and we only have one indefinite or unspecific article, which is se.

Here are a few more examples of our articles and nouns in action:

se fa’i
a banana
le fale
the house
se ta’avale saoasaoa
a fast car
le moa lapo’a
the fat chicken
aumai le penitala
bring the pencil
E avatu se vaiinu?
Should (I) give you a drink?

 

Plural and Singular Nouns

You should pay attention to the word in front of a Samoan noun because it will also tell us whether the noun is singular or plural.

se apu
an apple
ni apu
some (unspecific) apples
le apu
the apple
apu
apples

In English, adding an s makes most singular nouns plural, but in Samoan, the noun itself doesn’t change.

Usually.

(We’ll look at the exceptions in a minute.)

Instead, the article changes, or – as you can see with the definite le apu – the article disappears when the noun is plural.

NOTE: The article in front of the noun (or lack of an article) is only one way that we can form plurals in the Samoan language. In another lesson, I’ll show you how verbs also change when we’re talking about more than one noun.

About Those Exceptions

I said up there that Samoan nouns USUALLY don’t change when they become plural. According to the Peace Corps Samoan language manual and the Say it in Samoan language resource, only 9 Samoan nouns change when they become plural – and they all refer to people:
1. le tamaitiiti > tamaiti
the child > children
2. le teineitiiti > teineiti
the girl > girls
3. le matua > mātua
the parent > parents
4. le lo’omatua > lo’omātutua
the old woman > old women
5. le ‘olomatua > ‘olomātutua
the old woman > old women
6. le toeaina > toea’i’ina
the old man > old men
7. le tuafafine > tuafāfine
the sister (of a male) > sisters
8. le tamāloa > tamāloloa
the man > men
9. le taule’ale’a > taulele’a
the untitled man > untitled men
We’ll look more at these exceptions and how they’re used in sentences in our grammar section.

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