Request for Swahili native speakers
November 3, 2008 by Admin
Greetings!
I would be very glad if there were some Swahili native speakers here who would take a little time to help me by evaluating some sentences.
As I don’t really know to speak Swahili there might be some mistakes in, for instance, Subject-Verb-agreement. This is not, what interests me, actually. So, if I made any such mistake, it would be great if you could just correct me there and ignore that mistake for the evaluation of the sentence.
What I’m interested in is the following:
Out of verbs like -fungua you can build forms like fungu-k-a for sentences like English: “The door opens”. I would like to know for some more verbs, if you can convert them like that and how their meaning changes.
So, I will post some words/word groups, and you could tell me if you can use them like that, or if you can use them maybe in another context.
(I will add an intended reading/translation in brackets for my own understanding – if you notice mistakes in that rough translations, great if you notice me in case of mistakes as well!)
1) Halima a-na-soma kitabu (read)
2) Kitabu ki-na-som-ek-a
3) Halima a-na-som-ek-a
4)) Meli zi-na-zama (ship, sink)
5) Meli zi-na-zam-ek-a
6) Juma a-na-lala (sleep)
7) Juma a-na-lal-ek-a
Njumba i-na-waka (house, burn)
9) Njumba i-na-ungua
10) Njumba i-na-ungu-k-a
And a few more word groups; here I’m interested more in the word order and, other than in the examples above, the subject-verb-agreement.
Is this acceptable Swahili?
11) kijiji-ni pa-li-lala Juma
(in the village sleeps Juma)
12) kijiji ki-li-lala Juma
13) mtungi-ni pa-na-chemka maji
(in the pot water boils water)
14) mtungi u(?)-na-chemka maji
And for the following, are the statements utterable with the i- in front of the verb?
15) i-na-lala Halima
(it sleeps Halima)
16) i-na-ungua/waka mji
(it burns the city)
17) i-na-fung-uk-a mlango
(it opens the door)
18) i-na-fik-ik-a
(it is accessible??)
19) i-na-fungu-ka
(it is open-able)
20) i-na-lala
(meaning?)
21) i-na-lal-ek-a
(meaning??!)
So far for now. I’d be really glad if some people would help me, if just by evaluating a part of the sentences…
Asante sana!
Hi Groeg,
Apparently, there are not many Swahili (native) speakers on this forum…try contacting them here:
http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/Search.asp?selX3=43&selX6=1&selCountry=null&txtAgeMin=&txtAgeMax=&submit1=Search
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Hi Groeg,
Apparently, there are not many Swahili (native) speakers on this forum…try contacting them here:
http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/Search.asp?selX3=43&selX6=1&selCountry=null&txtAgeMin=&txtAgeMax=&submit1=Search
References :
hi groeg,
am from kenya n i think i can b of some help.
1n 2 r correct bt the third one is wrong. it translates into Halima can b read! it is either halima reads the bk (1)or the bk can b read(2).
5 means the ship can b sunk n is therfore correct. “meli zinazamishwa” means the ship are being sunk.
7 is similar to no. three. while someone can sleep(6), a person can’t b slept so 7 is wrong.
Njumba is a word for a big house, a bangalow, while nyumba is used for a normal house. “ungua” is more appropriate in this case than “waka” which means “alight”. Both 9(house is on fire) and 10(house is burning) are correct.
that word order, where the subject comes last, is acceptable in swahili bt it is very tricky n has a lot of exceptions that even natives do struggle with it. avoid it if u can n just stick to the simple subject-verb order! in the examples u have given u r talking abt a place so “pa” should b used which means 11 n 13 r correct bt 12 n 14 r wrong.
in case of a two-word sentence of a verb n a subject, in almost all cases the verb comes last which means 15, 16 n 17 r all wrong.
18(it is accessible),19(it is openable)n 21(it can b slept on) r correct . 20 simply means “it is sleeping”.