"How is the day grandmother?"

Translation: Habari za leo bibi?

[AllanKange]

it says under grandmother that nyanya is exceptional but when i typed it, it said bibi was supposed to be it. Can you fix it?

[AarDem]

when do you use ya and when za?

[GeorgiosDC]

I was driven to understand from other exercises that ya is singular and za is plural, referring to habari here; and that both are acceptable, meaning (sort of) what's new about X and what are the news about X. But in a multiple choice exercise where both were given (Habari za leo bibi, habari ya leo bibi), I was told that only the za form was acceptable? Why is it so? Or is it correct and the exercise needs fixing?

[ElDoctr]

When I lived in Kenya, I was taught that "habari za leo" was asking in general about news of the day. "Habari ya leo" would be asking about some specific news that you could assume that the listener would know, or at least understand the reference.

[kgyt]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_language#Agreement

[carrots084]

so what i'm getting from this, is nothing. I still don't understand.

[kgyt]

There is the Swahili noun-class concord. Please read, think and voila…

[carrots084]

English isn't my first language and that chart is very confusing to me.

[kgyt]

Lo siento, no conozco ningún curso Romani–Swahili.

[kgyt]

http://mylanguages.org/es/suajili_aprender.php

[GeorgiosDC]

@kgyt: Yeah, I know, I didn't say you shouldn't post the Spanish version; I just also posted the English one so others may benefit from it too and gave you credit for finding the site in the first place :-)

[GeorgiosDC]

This is the site suggested by kgyt in English
http://mylanguages.org/learn_swahili.php

I wanted to post it as a reply to his message, but it seems that reply trees go to a certain depth

[kgyt]

GeorgiosDC, please read first… :-D
“English isn't my first language…”, carrots084 wrote.

[carrots084]

Muchas gracias, pero Español tampoco! Mi primer idioma es Romaní! Usaré ambos sitios!

[Jon387886]

I just had an exercise in which the sentence 'how is the day grandfather' was not correct for 'habari za leo babu' correct was 'habari za mchana babu'. Now this exercise says that you do can translate 'the day' by 'leo'?

[hussain14656]

Leo means "today" but you can use it as the day

[ktingaum]

I don't get Leo and Mchana difference. Both can represent Day, but in this exercise, it said Mchana is wrong. What's the difference?

[RobinK17]

I believe mchana means afternoon and leo means today as in the entire day

[kgyt]

Is Nyanya ok instead of bibi?

[Malangahe]

In Tanzania we use bibi instead of nyanya, while nyanya is mostly used in Kenya. Sometimes it is confusing for learners because nyanya means "tomato" (both in Tanzania and Kenya) and bibi is used to mean "girlfriend" (normally in Kenya)... well you can use Nyanya instead of Bibi.

[kgyt]

Asante.

[shakir.mol]

sisi wa tanzania hatujui hii kitu lol
nilikuwa nafikiria kwamba system imekosea

[ElJalepeno]

This question confused me the most! xD