"habari za asubuhi dada?"

Translation: How is the morning sister?

[mahankr]

The English sentence needs a comma between morning and sister. The same goes for the other sentences of this same structure.

[LordMansaMusa]

Even during review, this one always gets me (dada usually means "father").

[ngwarai]

When you say "usually", what do you mean ?

[AGreatUserName]

I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I suspect he means in other languages, but there seem to be a lot of words associated with females in this list:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dada

They all seem to be traceable back to Persian though.

I also find this interesting:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%83%93%E1%83%94%E1%83%93%E1%83%90#Georgian "deda" (mother)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%83%9B%E1%83%90%E1%83%9B%E1%83%90#Georgian "mama" (father)

[bassoongir]

In English people sometimes call their fathers 'dada'. But in Swahili dada means sister so it is a bit confusing

[Margretta7]

Yup indeed! Quite confusing lmao

[Eneli267928]

Me too, can not rap my mind calling sister dada

[ElenMiao]

In English, babies call their Fathers "dada" so this is one to throw off us native English speakers :-D

[n0cturnalowl]

right? literally imagine getting that one mixed up to a native speaker hahaha

[Saruman77]

I'm L2/3 English speaker (does a second first language count as L1 or L2?) and I still get thrown off by dada and baba. Blame it on Ntflix, or the fact that I learn from my L3 (English) to my L5 if you want to count this my L5 already -- I'm still confused every other time.

[DiegoJaviUnlam]

Etymology (asubuhi)

From Arabic الصُبْح ‎(aṣ-ṣubḥ, “the morning”).

Pronunciation

IPA: /ɑ.suˈɓu.hi/

Noun

asubuhi (n class, plural asubuhi)

morning

From Wiktionary:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/asubuhi

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Swahili_n_class_nouns

[jdiegosuarez]

Do you know if Swahili <B>, <D>, <G> and <J> are always supposed to be implosive?

[alvinkatojr]

They are but more emphasis is placed on the context, i.e. the level of implosion varies with the context. Not sure if this helps, but if you can give an example I may be able to clarify further.

[alexis328047]

What do u mean implosive

[johnsocal]

"How is your morning" would be a more natural translation, no?

[VictorWachira]

I suppose so. There is nothing that translates directly to good morning, the greeting in Swahili, it's just a question posed so any translation into English is what is meant. IDK.

[jocelyn1233]

I agree! I translated it as how is your morning sister.
Or How are you this morning sister

[leahfels1]

Is it common for Swahili speakers to refer to their siblings as "brother" or "sister" when talking to them?

[jocelyn1233]

I thought you called all men and women brother and sister, no?

[AnkeetBhat1]

I want to know something guys is it right habari za asubuhi dada means good morning sister ? Please help because some of my local friends saying it should be good morning not how is the morning

[bwana-b]

The most common way to greet someone in the morning is habari ya/za asubuhi, so YES it is used as "good morning" is in English, but it means "news of the morning". I don´t recall ever hearing somebody say "asubuhi njema/nzuri" for "good morning". Plz do tell if you have heard it and where.

[Thomas_Slo]

Are commas (,) used in Swahili? I automatically miss a comma before "dada".

[djdjdj114]

Couldn't you also say "How are you this morning, sister?" as another translation for this?

[AnnaSusita]

That's what I answered and it was marked wrong. I reported.

[Vanlalvena.05]

wasn't za used for plurals? + what's the difference between "the" morning vs "this" morning?

[ngwarai]

Yes "za" is used for plurals. The sentence literally translates to, "news of morning sister". There is no "a/an" or "the" in Swahili.

[Vanlalvena.05]

"news of morning sister".
as in shouldn't it be "sisters" if it's za? [or can either 'news' or 'sister' be plural?]

[ngwarai]

As in news. Normally in English, news is uncountable. You will have to use something like "a piece of news " or "a news item " if you really wanted to "count" . "za" is qualifying "habari" and not "dada". I hope that helps.

[Vanlalvena.05]

thanks! that makes sense

[ngwarai]

Thanks for the lingot

[Becky989164]

More likely, someone from the USA would say "How are you this morning, sister?"

[jocelyn1233]

Is this not the same as "How are you this morning sister?".

[JillKent]

Dada can also mean miss when referring to a young lady you do not know

[IngeJ.Grns]

Is "How are you this morning, sister" wrong?

[AdityaTheBaller]

great

[Nicola537456]

Hi

[ObediAlima]

U