"Vyakula vyao"

Translation: Their food

[JamesTWils]

So, how is the plural used? If I have five oranges, do I have vyakula? Would I, if I had some oranges, some rice, and some sausages? I think in English I would only use the plural, if I were talking about cuisines, such as the foods of the various peoples of Asia, or some such.

[danielmokmad]

I would use chakula to describe the food that makes up a meal. So, if a family is sharing several dishes, I would refer to that as chakula. But if a group of students has each brought their own lunch, I would refer to those collectively as vyakula.

[JamesTWils]

OK, so essentially you would use the plural for different kinds of food, right? In my first example above, if I just had 5 oranges (but did not want to specify what kind of food it was) I might call it chakula, but if I had a bag of oranges, mangoes, and onions, I might want to call it vyakula?

[danielmokmad]

I have never heard it used as "foods". I think vyakula would only be "meals".

[JamesTWils]

Now I get it. Thank you again.

[Ben837613]

In this case i would say the students' meals rather than food, so in that case it would be more obvious to use vyakula over chakula

[the3lusive]

You can check out the tips section. More than one item becomes vyakula. If you have five oranges you have "machungwa tano". Baadhi means some; so you can have baadhi ya machungwa, baadhi ya wali and baadhi ya sausage.

[danielmokmad]

If you have five oranges, you would have "machungwa matano" numbers have to agree with the noun class for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8.

[the3lusive]

Yes, chungwa moja. Or machungwa

mawili,
matatu,
manne,
matano
manane.

[Gazelle1596]

"some" in the sense of "part of" - for baadhi; as far as I know that would only be used as part of something bigger (not some as in a few)

[Joanne394981]

But this is different than danielmoland answer.

[Gazelle1596]

Joanne394981, who are you talking to and which comment are you referring to? He has written several comments and it is not clear from context. :)