"Nilipokuwa Marekani nilikuwa na gari"
Translation:When I was in the USA, I had a car
July 16, 2017
6 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
This discussion is locked.
kuwa na is to have. If you just used kuwa here, you would be saying "I was a car."
Nina -- I have
Ni -- I am
Nilikuwa na -- I had
Nilikuwa -- I was
Shouldn't this be "nilikuwa katika..." this sentence basically sounded to me like "when i was American, i had a car". I guess if it was "... was in a market", you could modify the noun -soko- to -sokoni- but here, "marekani" already has a -ni- at the end. Or is saying the usa actually just -mareka- and the -ni- is this locative modification?
"The USA" is Marekani. Proper nouns never take the -ni suffix, even when being used as a locative. Also, when a locative is expected and there is no -ni in sight, there is a good chance that the proper noun is your locative, like in this sentence.
