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- "Ndizi hazijapikwa"
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Can someone break down hazijapikwa for me? I don't think the Tips & Notes adequately explain how to form this negative, wouldn't the affirmative be wamepika?
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Ndizi -- hazi--ja--pikwa
banana--they(neg.)--have not--been cooked.
It will be slightly easier once you've hit object infixes, provided you take note of the sentence saying that infixes for noun classes other than M/Wa are the same as their subject prefix (don't worry, it lists them). When you reach it I suggest you copy them down somewhere.
Negative subject prefixes are handled the usual way.
So for this sentence example:
Ndizi is an N/N noun. It's subject prefixes are i- for singular and zi- for plural. The negative forms are hai- and hazi- respectively. Since this sentence uses hazi-, we know there are multiple bananas.
The -wa at the end indicates the passive voice (again, will make more sense when you reach the relevant skill). So where pika would mean the banana has cooked, pikwa means the banana has been cooked.
So far we have worked out that there are multiple bananas, and that cooking has not been happening. (hazi-pikwa).
The reason I have left -ja- to last is because it's an error of omission in the Immediate Past tips and notes. I've just sent a message to Branden on his activity stream, hoping he'll see it and add some detail. (report date: 14 Mar 2017)
It's actually fairly simple: -ja- is the negative immediate past tense. Just like -ku- is the negative of the past tense -li-. So really all you have to do is put -ja- instead of -me- if the immediate past is negative, and drop the infinitive ku for monosyllabic verbs (nimekula/sijala. I have eaten/I have not eaten).
Disclaimer: I started this course the day it hit limited beta, with just a tiny bit of understanding of the language. I did a lot of zipping round various parts of the tree to find this info (plus some googling once I figured out what the missing bit was). While I have learnt a lot, I have not suddenly become an expert during these few weeks. So if at any point you find a better explanation, use that over what I say here. :)
only a small addition: -ja- "have not yet" (usually with the intention or possibility of it still happening)
I agree. The -ja- infix is better translated as having potential, i.e., "yet."
Could this mean "The bananas are not cooked, or would that be "Ndizi hazijapikika"?
ha -not ( negation ) ; zi - they ( prefix from 9/10 N-N class plural) ; ja- using for negation forms in past time "me" ; pika - thema from kupika verb ; -w- into thema of verb makes pasive form of the verb.
Who knows how will be pasive form from " kula" ? The oranges are eaten. > Machungwa yamekulika or yamekulka ( this is lestning quite funny ) ?
it's "lika" for stative or "liwa" for passive, per https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/la#Swahili (scroll to "Derived terms")
I feel like duolingo went from simple past tense to 'expert-level-understanding-past-tense' real quick. Like this had me totally lost. Thank goodness for the comments on this bad boy.
so is there just one word for both bananas and plantains? Because I can't imagine why anyone would want to ever cook a BANANA!
No, to specify plantains you would say "matoke". And yes, some of these example sentences can be funny.
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A lot of people say ndizi when they mean matoke, because they know you wouldn't cook a sweet banana, so its understood that they mean plantains.
In the Caribbean, green banana is boiled and eaten. It's both imaginable and good :-)
