"Welcome, how is the morning"

Translation: karibu habari za asubuhi

[dadalien]

just wondering, what's the difference between za and ya?

[AGreatUserName]

Habari has the same form in singular and plural but other words in the sentence that refer to it will tell you if it is plural or singular. Many of its translations in English are uncountable, such as "news" and "information". If you like, you can think of the singular as meaning "piece of news", "piece of information", "report", "message", and the plural as meaning "pieces of news", "pieces of information", "reports", "messages"

The word for "of" is -a, which takes a prefix based on the noun class (different for singular and plural). The full table is here:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/a#Swahili

There's a bigger table here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_language#Agreement

Habari, like a lot of loanwords, belongs to the N class.

So basically, habari ya means "piece of news/information of", "message/report of", and habari za means "pieces of news/information of", "messages/reports of".

[CarolynHar19]

Za is plural and ya is singular. Habari is one of the nouns that has the same form in the singular and plural, so za and ya distinguish which one is being used.

[dadalien]

Oh, I see! Thank you so much!

[Drasher]

As far as I can tell, ya is singular and za is plural. Habari means news so I guess that's how the plurality comes in. I've been having a touch bit of trouble wrapping my head around it, tbh tho.

[LordMansaMusa]

I also thought this was the case, but so far I have seen "Habari za nyumbani?" which so far translates to "How is home", but there is no reference as to whether or not this can be exchanged for "How is your (plural) home or even "your" home or "the" home.

I thought any sentence that was NOT a greeting "habari ya mchana, habari ya asubuhi" would be YA, and any sentence in which you are either referring to an object (habari za nyumbani - how is YOUR home, or habari za usiku kaka - how is YOUR night brother) would be ZA.

This question may allude to a possessive meaning as well. Saying welcome, personalizes the "How is your morning", but the translation says "how is the morning".

[dadalien]

Ok, thanks!

[tkdgrl]

I dont get it, I used the right words

[MattHaythem]

Does anyone know if Swahili combines vowels together across word boundaries like some languages? For example is "za asabuhi" pronounced like "zasabuhi"?

[LungileJen]

Hi guys, is anyone's microphone working? I can't seem to get any speaking or listening exercises despite selecting that I want these

[Maike207809]

I think it's because the course is still in beta, and will be added later.

[Soda475725]

My sound isn't working for this class either

[HallieGray]

Karibu is welcome? Phil Hartman and Dieter are going to help me remember this one! :-D

[ZuYasin]

Welcome, good morning- karibu habari ya asubuhi