"As if waiting for you"

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

How do you translate an "as if" clause in Na'vi? I scoured the dictionary and no such thing came up; maybe I just forgot some construction due to my Na'vi being in disuse.

I was trying to translate Japanese "とどくように" for a song, basically wait-MANNER-DATIVE, or "seemingly waiting (for you)", or in a direct translation, nìfya'o a ngar pey, although I doubt that would be understood by a Na'vi!

[Plumps]

No, we don't have a construct for that right now in Na'vi.

German uses ,,als ob ..." in Na'vi ~ na/pxel ftxey ...

Irish uses: mar a + the conditional form of the verb

[Blue Elf]

How do you translate an "as if" clause in Na'vi? I scoured the dictionary and no such thing came up; maybe I just forgot some construction due to my Na'vi being in disuse.

I was trying to translate Japanese "とどくように" for a song, basically wait-MANNER-DATIVE, or "seemingly waiting (for you)", or in a direct translation, nìfya'o a ngar pey, although I doubt that would be understood by a Na'vi!

what about ....pxel/na ngari oe pivey ? Just attempt.

[Plumps]

what about ....pxel/na ngari oe pivey ? Just attempt.

Nìkeftxo, ke zo... na/pxel don't allow a case ending which -ri is

[Blue Elf]

what about ....pxel/na ngari oe pivey ? Just attempt.

Nìkeftxo, ke zo... na/pxel don't allow a case ending which -ri is

what a pitty that adposition can't connect the whole subclause.

[Plumps]

They can, actually,

pxel fwa ngari oe pey

But I would interpret that as "It's like waiting for you" and not "as if waiting for you" ... or is that a subtlety that a native English speaker wouldn't mind?

[Kemaweyan]

Tse.. I would translate ように in 届くように as fte But it's better to see complete sentence...

[Tanri]

I think in the past I have said "na fwa...", but like Plumps said

... or is that a subtlety that a native English speaker wouldn't mind?)

, the exact meaning surely differs listener to listener.

But another thought rises in my mind. This construction is very close to counterfactual conditions. Let's have this example:
"He was running as if his tail was on fire."
The condition (as if his tail was on fire) is clearly counterfactual, because it wasn't met in the time some action happened (he was running). So, I'll be not surprised if the Navi translation will have something common with zun..zel conditions.

Spoiler: speculation

Po sroler tsautraluo tsìk, nìfya'o a zun oeri pimvey. - He suddenly appeared behind that tree, like if he was waiting for me.

"na fwa zun.." feels to me overcomplicated, and "na zun.." miss some noun after na, because Navi adpositions na/pxel are to be used with nouns.
As I am now looking back few lines I wrote, na is somehow inappropriate, it is related to the noun, but we want it to be adverbial (something happens in a way like if...).
"nìfya'o a..." should be the correct phrasing for this.

[N'wah]

I can't really help with the Na'vi aspect (yet) but for the Japanese ones

届くように

If I add a verb and an adverb to the first verb to that I could make -
無事に届くように祈っている。

I pray that (unspecified subject) will arrive safely.  Literally (but with English word order) - I am praying for a manner that (something) arrives safely

It's a bit hard to give only one translation to ように.  In some cases you could use the world "like" - He ran as if/in a manner like his tail was on fire.  Thinking about it now, I usually don't translate that word across but if I had to I'd use manner.  Sorry if this seems a little disorderly, I don't know much about the topic in Na'vi but I translated Japanese for money for a bit ;p