"Have a good night Rehema"
Translation:Usiku mwema Rehema
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As a rule of thumb: "mwema" is for animate (plants, humans, animals) and nouns beginning with an m- or u-. (pluarl: "wema") "njema" is for nouns from the N-class (9/10) - they're a lot; as other forms are rare (I don't think we've learned any in this course so far, you can stick with that).
so why then are night, evening, morning and afternoon in different classes. since when is night an animate object?
Night is not an animate object - "mwema" also is used for abstract nouns starting with "u-" (such as "usiku" - night) and plants singular (such as "mti" - tree) morning and afternoon (I'm not sure about evening) are Arabic loan word, which thereby fall into class 9/10; usiku, however, would be a Bantu word and has always been in class 11(/10) - the Bantu words formerly used for morning, afternoon etc. have been overtaken by the Arabic (meaning, they weren't always in that class). Loan words are usually put into the "ma-" class (6) or "i-"/"zi-" (9/10).
Good = -ema. What you put in front of it, depends on the noun-class of the noun you use.
It depends on the noun class. There is upto 19 classes both singular and plural and it is usually divied in inanimate objects, living things, nature. Anyway my problem with is part is that have a goodnight should be translated to kuwa na usiku mwema. Fluent speak, just doing some revision
"Uwe na usiku mwema." - however, wouldn't it also be more common in English to say "good night" rather than "Have a good night." ? (I have never heard "uwe na usiku mwema" and don't think it is used - can you possess a night? in Swahili...)
I am Kenyan by birth but white and trying to improve my dreadful swahili! Getting very confused with 'posh' swahili ie mwema or njema for eg.!