"I am going to clean mother's dishes."
Translation:Nitamsafishia vyombo vyake vya mama.
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I have my doubts about this Swahili sentence. Two alternatives which I think are better: 1) "Nita(vi)safisha vyombo vya mama." (this is word-for-word). 2) "Nitamsafishia mama vyombo vyake." (this uses the prepositional). To me, "vyombo vyake vya mama" is a very questionable construction. Reported.
No, because your version makes it sounds like you are cleaning the mother for her. Since she was mentioned in the first word, we know she is coming, but we need to know what is being washed first.
The sentence structure doesn't translate will into english, but 'vyake' is the possessive pronoun for 'his/her' that agree's with the KI-VI noun class. Another example would be 'Wake/Yake' for the M/MI class. Hope that helps!
Thanks! Do you need both vyake and vya? Or would only vya be sufficient as well?
No,you don't need both. A better version of the sentence would be 'Nitamsafishia mama vyombo vyake' or keeping the original sentence minus the 'vya'
No, because the prefix -li- is the past tense marker. It has to be -ta- for the future tense, to reflect the English future form "going to" (i.e in the immediate future).
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Hahaha, meanwhile in the Japanese course... xD
"I asked my mother to clean." : 「母にそうじをしてとたのみました。」
dsimonds, in that year have you finished the course yet? Just wondering, as this (so far) seems to be going a lot faster than either of the other ones I've done, one of which I "finished" (but then they put all new stuff on it!) and the other of which I am still working on, both of more than a year, and I've only been on the Swahili course for just under 3 months, and I'm almost where I am on the Vietnamese after 15 months!! So, if you're finished, how long did it take you to finish?
I finished fairly quickly by "testing out" at nearly every opportunity, since I have some prior knowledge of Swahili. But that left me at level 23 with apparently hundreds more exercises to do to get the number of points (or whatever they are called) needed for level 25. I don't mind when there is something new to practice, (at least new to the lesson if not new to me) but sometimes it is the same words and the same constructions again and again, and that annoys me. The only thing that keeps me going is the interesting discussions on many of the sentences, sometimes forcing me to rethink things I thought I already knew. :)
thanks for your reply. The way this particular course is structured, I may be able to "test out" of things, because I usually get the answers right, but, unlike you, I have absolutely NO prior knowledge of Swahili, nor do I have people to practice with, so I am wanting to get all the coursework that I can. I am already at Level 11, but truthfully I have no idea whatsoever how the levels are determined. It just seems weird that after an entire year more I am only on Level 18 in Vietnamese. I can see how if you already know the language fairly well, it can get annoying with the repetition--I am in the same situation with Spanish--but for those of us just learning, the repetition is a plus. I have yet to figure out the Swahili verbs though. I just know the 1st person singular starts with "N" and the infinitive starts with "K," but just that little bit of knowledge usually is enough to guess between the three choices, lol! Just out of curiosity, may I ask how you came upon your prior knowledge of Swahili? Did you live in Tanzania/Kenya/Uganda before? I knew how to say "Merry Christmas" in Swahili before, and my youngest daughter's name is Swahili, but other than that, I didn't know a thing. It has really been enjoyable though. I know three languages pretty well, and five others somewhat (not counting Swahili), and this is definitely the easiest and most fun of any language I've studied thus far. Don't you think so?
The question I think kvalitetstid was trying to pose got sidetracked and never answered satisfactorily: why is the "vyake" needed? Why wouldn't "Nitamsafishia vyombo vya mama" do the job?
this version of the sentence is no longer on the course. If anyone is still unclear on the correct translation, it is 'Nitamsafishia mama vyombo vyake'
