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"Habari ya leo" translated to "how is IT TODAY" and this is "how is THE DAY" using "za leo" but I haven't completed any lessons on how ya and za are used. Any suggestions?
I think daviesmkareee is on point below.
The word "habari" is both singular ("a piece of news") and plural. "ya" is used when it's singular, and "za" when it's plural. However, when it's pretty much meaning "How are you today?" there's not a whole lot of difference between them. Perhaps a fluent speaker can explain any subtle nuances. There are about 1 2/3 times as many Google results (with quotation marks, so finds the exact phrase) for the form with "ya" for whatever that's worth.
wow this is fun but confusing. And why if representing English is the american flag? English is well... english! I know there are more americans in the world than us brits but shoudnt the flag representing a language should be the origin country? It should be the union flag of britain? What does everyone else think
If should be union jack if the course is teaching british english. Just as the swahili course teaches tanzanian swahili, thus using the tanzanian flag instead of kenya.
The same goes for portuguese, i guess it depends on who made the course
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sometimes za and ya have "your" as acceptable translations and sometimes "your" is not accepted. Is there are reason for this, or is it just inconsitencies in the translation database behind the course?
Its just the same thing.But ya leo can refer to one item of news in a different context for example if one is trying to say some news that happened.In this case we can be specific in singular and plural.In greetings both singular and plural can be accepted
My husband is a native swahili speaker. He says "leo" means "now" not "day" or "today".
Please check with him again, because "leo" definitely translates as "today":
leo nm [i-] = today.
http://www.elimuyetu.co.tz/subjects/arts/swa-eng/l.html
