"Vitunguu na maembe"

Translation: Onions and mangoes

[HakeemEvrenoglu]

I was looking for some materials.... why does Duo offer "Maembe" and "maparachichi" as answers, but other sites say "miembe" and "miparachichi"? Who should I believe?

[John00625]

There are some spelling variations, the people who made this course are Tanzanian, and have slightly different spellings than those people who are in Kenya or any other Swahili speaking country. For example, I've seen Ninyi spelled Nyinyi, knowing both helps even if you are only going to use one to lower the chance of confusion while you're talking to a Swahili speaker.

[HakeemEvrenoglu]

Hey! I decided to check some books, now that I got wi-fi, and I think I found out on the internet, after I checked Teach Yourself Swahili, apparently based in Tanzanian Swahili, and the spelling was the same.

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• embe/maembe: mango(es)
• mwembe/miembe: mango tree(s)

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• parachichi/maparachichi: avocado(s)
• mparachichi/miparachichi: avocado tree(s).

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So, apparently, changing the noun class of a fruit from ∅/ma to m/mi gives us the tree.

[John00625]

Ah! I didn't know this, thank you :) I'll still leave my comment above up there for reference to knowing spelling variations.

[HakeemEvrenoglu]

Ohhh, that makes sense... I wasn't aware of this spelling variation... Thank you very much for that explanation. :D

[VincentOostelbos]

"Onions and mangos" should be accepted. Cannot report, because it's counted as a typo, not a full mistake.

[Tom122719]

OK. So my "Onions and mangoes" was wrong because of the "e". But I agree, according to other exercises, plural should be an option.

[Ben_Stallings]

Now it's only accepting the plural. "Onion and mango" is not accepted.

[Brian707119]

I have the same comment - Onion and mango would seem to be correct, as would be onions and mango, or onion and mangos

[Alexandria96411]

It's funny I can say maembe better than I can say mangoes.