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- Topic: Swahili >
- "Kupanda"
17 Comments
You can also think of the cookie jar up on the shelf.Somebody has kupanga 'ed (arranged) them up there. If you kupenda (like) the cookies you will kupanda ((climb) to get them :)
Could not find a translation for cookie, but found keki (cake): ninapanda kekini. Muta!
keki - kekini would be at/by/on/in the cookie (I somehow doubt that was your intention, but maybe I just misunderstood your - actually humorous :) - sentence)
My Swahili is not yet good enough a better try to climb into a Cookie Jar might be this: Ninapanda sufuriani ya keki.
As Gazelle1596 said, you can't say sufuriani ya.
The -ni suffix converts the noun into one of the three locative classes. For these, the equivalent words for of are pa (class 16, specific location), kwa (class 17, generic or approximate location), mwa (class 18, internal location).
When talking about entering the "cake tin" (if sufuria is the right word) you'd say sufuriani mwa keki because you're talking about the inside of the tin.
However, in practice, mwa is pretty rare and when you're further describing a noun with a following phrase, it's more common to precede it with kwenya or katika rather than add -ni, so you could simply say kwenya/katika sufuria ya.
-panda always is upwards, to my knowledge. Ninaingia keki(ni). (I am entering the cake/cookie.) au: Ninaingia sufuria ya keki. (I am entering the pot with cookies.) With the -ni suffix it would not be ya (but change to kwa, or pa)
Cookies can just be called 'bisquit' like in Europe. To "Swahilifi" it you can spell/say it 'biskiti'
Just a small note: In English it's spelt "biscuit" (with a "c" and a silent "u"), not "bisquit".
I was in a duka two Days ago and asked a Tanzanian why it meant three different things, to plant, to sow, and to climb. He said that it does mean those, but it means or its referring to "to increase".
So what's with the "to plant" and "to sow" alternatives. Are those less common meanings?
