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- "Ugali"
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Food - Tips and Notes (below the lessons)
There are specific Swahili words that are used for some popular foods in East Africa. Translations in English do not necessarily exist and are usually descriptors, so for this course you can use either the Swahili word in your English exercises, or the descriptor, though it would be better for you to leave the Swahili word as is. For example:
Ugali is stiff porridge in English, but you can just call it ugali.
Pilau is a spiced rice, but you can just call it pilau.
Nyama choma is literally barbecued meat, cooked in a special, smoked manner, so it can simply be referred to as nyama choma.
Mtori is literally a banana soup made with green bananas, but that is a long descriptor, so mtori is acceptable.
1105
I am not sure why it varies like this, but it could be that different instances of the same question aren't all corrected at once.
It's good to have a description, but we shouldn't be required to translate the word with the description. Stiff porridge makes me think of something like the kind of polenta (corn or maize meal porridge that is cooked until stiff then cooled so it can be sliced - try typing that every time you see it) that can be sliced and fried, or the masa (hominy (corn(maize) that has been soaked in lye) flour dough) used in tamales, or grits (ground hominy (see above) cooked like a porridge). I suspect it is none of the above, and stiff porridge conveys no more to my mind than ugali when trying to figure out what the dish really is.