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- "They are from Tanzania"
"They are from Tanzania"
Translation:Wametoka Tanzania
6 Comments
1062
They used "wanatoka" for "come from" but "wametoka" for "are from". Is this to distinguish between where the people were located previously versus where they were born? The English is ambiguous.
1062
So "wametoka" should mean they have recently come, but I think I learned somewhere that it can also be used to indicate where they were born and/or grew up. In which case it is a correct translation of "They are from" and, in this example, they are Tanzanians.
However, when I look it up, everything points to "wanatoka" being used to identify people's origins in this way. See for example lesson 7b here (scroll to Question formation): https://www2.ku.edu/~kiswahili/pdfs/all.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A75%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22FitH%22%7D%2C796%5D
That would indicate that "Wametoka Tanzania" is an incorrect translation of "They are from Tanzania". Does anyone have a better source on this?