A few useful phrases

Have been a bit out of touch, so apologies for my lapse in posting stuff here
Now I thought I'd introduce a few of you to some basic fijian words and their pronounciation. Unfortunately I don't have a fijian dictionary so you'll have to apologise for all the errors in spelling and meaning if you are a native...everything I learnt was taught to us by the locals
First a bit of info on the alphabet...it's the same as the english alphabet, but with a few pronounciation differences:

d - sounds like "nd" so Yadua is pronounced "Yandua"
b - sounds like "mb" so Taba is pronounced "Tamba"
g - sounds like "ng" so sega is pronounced "senga"
[thus the little island next to Yadua, Yadua Taba, sounds like "Yandua Tamba"]
c - sounds like "th" so moce is pronounced "mothe"

Now for some basic phrases:

bula - hello/welcome
moce - goodbye
vathaba tico? - (my spelling here is sketchy!) how are you?
setico - well
bula bula tico, bula setico! - extraordinarily well!
sega na lega - no worries
vinaka - thankyou
levu - big
vaka levu - a lot
vinaka vaka levu na [...] - thankyou very much for [insert any noun here]
keri keri - please
kava - the traditional fijian drink made from the kava root...a mild hallucinagen...the locals love it and drink far too much of it!
kana - food

If you ever get to go to Fiji please try using a few of these phrases, you'll be amazed how grateful the locals will be and they will really open up to you (and they all speak english anyway, so once you get past the pleasantries you won't get lost in complex fijian phrases). And you'll almost certainly get invited to share a bowl of kava, or two, or three, or...

PS I will try and add a few more phrases as I remember them