I've noticed there aren't really any words ending in "-ing" in Sindarin. Is there a way to craft a word with "-ing"? For example; how would you use/write a word like "going" or "running"? Is there a formal/format for present and past tense words? I enjoy creating phrases/sayings, but I have a difficult time finding some of the words I want to use/translate.
Hello Noril!
What you are looking for are not words, but conjugations. You won’t normally find “going” in an English dictionary either, because it is a conjugation of the verb “go”, i.e. a form that derives from “go” in a predictable manner with a predictable change in meaning.
The form “going” in English is not really a present tense though - this is a very common pitfall. “Going” is an active participle (and also a gerund), which is used to form the present continuous tense in English when in conjunction with the auxiliary verb “be”.
Sindarin of course has ways of expressing tenses and participles. But unlike English, which uses participles for expressing tense, Sindarin has multiple forms which would be translated as e.g. “running” in English.
i-Adan nôr “The man is running”.
i-Adan norel “The running man”.
i-Adan mêl nored “The man loves running”.
Ultimately what you need is to study the grammar of Sindarin. Merely selecting words from a dictionary won’t help you construct correct sentences and phrases. You can find most of what you need here.
I have a few sentences I created that show case this. I am still learning myself and created sentences to help me. There are a wealth of knowledgeable people in the community that are well versed in both Sindarin and Quenya. Ellanto shows great examples in his post. :)
I keep wondering, why do you put a pronoun in parenthesis in your back-translations? For example i-Edhel câr garas there is no pronoun present or implied, only a verb that is conjugated to agree with a singular subject.
The only case where I'd say a pronoun is implied and could be parenthetically indicated in the translation is in the case of 3rd person, e.g. Mâd mast "(He) eats bread", but in the previous sentence i-Edhel is an overt subject.
Anyway, as to your sentences, only one correction -
Though I should also note that car- might not be the best verb for the first sentence. Perhaps tag- can be used, i-Edhel tâg garas.
That was just my way of remembering what to conjugate the verbs to. I should have took those out when I posted. 😎 yeah I forgot to switch to tâg in my notes.