A small poem I tried to translate.

['Awpo]

Kaltxì ma smukan,

I found this little poem on the web, which I translated from Dutch.

If looking in front of you makes you nervous,
And looking behind you hurts.
Look next to you,
Because I'll be there for you.

And I tried to translate it into Na'vi, so I wanted to ask you guys if you could check it for errors
Here goes:

Txo nìn eo ngari txopu sìyi nga
Ulte nìn ne`im tìsraw seyki
Nìn nìhay nga
Taweyk oeri lamu tsatseng pxisre ngaru.

Please let me know if I made some mistakes, because it has been a while since the last time I've been here.

[Tirea Aean]

Kaltxì ma smukan,

I found this little poem on the web, which I translated from Dutch.

If looking in front of you makes you nervous,
And looking behind you hurts.
Look next to you,
Because I'll be there for you.

And I tried to translate it into Na'vi, so I wanted to ask you guys if you could check it for errors
Here goes:

Txo nìn eo ngari txopu sìyi nga
Ulte nìn ne`im tìsraw seyki
Nìn nìhay nga
Taweyk oeri lamu tsatseng pxisre ngaru.

Please let me know if I made some mistakes, because it has been a while since the last time I've been here.

Very nice! I like this. and a very nice attempt as well, for being away for so long

SO. if we translate the meaning a little bit, we get something like:

If looking towards the future causes you to fear,
and looking towards the past causes you to hurt,
Look to your side,
Because I will be there for you.

nìkeftxo, the cuteness has been destroyed. But we are translating it to Na'vi, not leaving it like this.

but now, it is easier (and possible) to say in Na'vi:

Txo tìnusìn ne zusawkrr a fì'ul ngati txopu seyki,
ulte tìnusìn ne ftawnemkrr a fì'ul ngati tìsraw seyki,
nìn ne ngeyä pa'o,
talun fpi nga oel tsatsenget tayok.

This is really the ONLY good way to get good translations of anything into Na'vi, with the Na'vi we have at the moment. yeah your precious words and the original wording is wrecked and destroyed, but if you preserve the actual Meaning, you have accomplished your actual task: translate the meaning of a poem in English into Na'vi.

anyone else have any other creative ways to say any of this? this was just my take on it.

['Awpo]

Irayo ma Tirea Aean

yeah your precious words and the original wording is wrecked and destroyed.

You know the saying: Kill your darlings? You should never get attached too much to something
Btw, I've been here for quite a while but I was away for even longer

[Tirea Aean]

Irayo ma Tirea Aean

yeah your precious words and the original wording is wrecked and destroyed.

You know the saying: Kill your darlings? You should never get attached too much to something
Btw, I've been here for quite a while but I was away for even longer

yeah. true. i try to tell everyone this. "translate meaning, not words. "

I knew that, and that is waht i meant. edited to say "for being away for so long"

[Kemaweyan]

Txo tìnusìnìl eo nga txopu seyki ngati
Ulte tìnusìn uo nga tìsraw seyki
Nìn nìhay ngati
Taweyk oel tayok tsatseng fpi nga.

tìnusìn - it's gerund as looking in english. This isn't a verb, but noun: looking makes you nervous - tìnusìnìl txopu seyki ngati. I used infix -eyk- because the verb txopu si is intransitive and we need causative infix to make it transitive with meaning "looking make you afraid". So we must use ergative -ìl and accusative -ti cases. Besides I use eo nga without case marker because we should not use cases with adpositions.

If you want translate "behind you", in Na'vi it would be uo nga The verb nìn is transitive and if nga is an object, then we must use accusative case -ti.

The clause "I'll be there" is in future tense, so you should use infix -ay-. And for places it's better to use the verb tok rather than lu. Tok is transitive verb and then use ergative and accusative. I don't undestand why you used here the word pxisre. Also "for you" in Na'vi would be fpi nga without cases.

['Awpo]

Irayo Irayo Irayo

But Kemaweyan, could you please explain the tìnusìnìl and the tìnusìn? Because I don't quite get the steps of how you derived that from nìn...

[Kemaweyan]

That's tì-n<us>ìn It's a gerung like "looking" in english (as a noun, please don't confuse it with continuous tenses when it's a verb). More read here.

But now I'm not sure what my second row is correct. Maybe there also should be tìnusìnìl tìsraw seyki ngati with ergative and accusative. I'm not sure what we can use -eyk- without an object...

['Awpo]

Aha, I see! Thank you for that topic though.
It helped out a lot;)
Irayo ulte Eywa ngahu ma smukan

+1 karma cookie for both of you

[omängum fra'uti]

I don't think that either nìn or the gerund are correct.

Nìn means to look AT something, so you need an object to look at.  Tìng nari would be better here.  Gerunds must stand alone.  You can't give them any "arguments" - so you can't use "looking at X" as a gerunt, merely "looking".

Given that the Na'vi see time as passing (ftawnemkrr - passed time) they may get the idea of looking forward and looking back.  However I'll go with Tirea's looking to the future and past for now...

...Tìng nari ne zusawkrr...
...Tìng nari ne ftawnemkrr...
...Tìng nari ne ngeyä pa'o...

It's also debatable if you'd want to use tivok instead of tayok.