Your first steps in Breton

Here are the very first sentences of Breton in this course :

• Who is it ?

Piv eo ?
Who is ?

• It's John

Yann eo
John is

• What does John do?

Petra a ra Yann ?
What does John ?

• John reads Bremañ (insisting upon the subject : John)

Yann a lenn Bremañ
John reads Bremañ

• John reads Bremañ (insisting upon the verb : To read)

Lenn Bremañ a ra Yann
To read Bremañ does Yann

Verbal group

In the preceding sentences, we have several verbal groups :

• "eo" : the verb "to be" is used alone in a personal form
• "a ra" : the verb "to do" is used in a personal form with a verbal particle "a" (other verbal particles exist: "e", "o", etc.)
• "a lenn" : the verb "to read" is used in a personal form with a verbal particle "a" as above
• "lenn a ra" : the verb "to read" is used in an impersonal form with an auxiliary verb which is in a personal form "a ra"