"It is hot I am taking off my socks"

Translation: Kuna joto ninavua soksi

[DavidScott493272]

Where is the 'my' in the translation

[AGreatUserName]

It's not there. In a lot of languages, you don't need to specify my socks in sentences like this because the default assumption is that one take off ones own socks. English is really quite crazy about possessives and it would just sound super strange to say "I am taking off the socks", so it's "my" just to make the English more natural. People who don't speak English natively, from a range of backgrounds, will say things like "He took off the hat" and, even though it's obvious that it means his hat, in most situations in most dialects "his hat" is much more natural English in that sentence.

It should accept ... soksi zangu as well, but it's probably pretty superfluous in Swahili.

[machieng]

including 'zangu' should still be correct. It's just that in this case 'my socks' can just mean 'the socks on my feet', so in the Swahili translation it's not necessary to specify since it's implicit. Unless of course, for whatever reason, the person has the urge to remove other people's socks when it's hot

[Ljmlbor5]

This urge develops once you become a parent... Suddenly "socks" never implicitly mean "my socks", and you start taking off little people's socks all the time, when it's hot

[ElizabethF711355]

When studying body parts earlier in this course, there were sentences such as "The foot hurts." Many native English speakers complained that this would never be said in English. Is this similar? If I went to the doctor with a sore foot in Tanzania, would I say "the foot hurts" or "my foot hurts?"

[machieng]

those were probably included to appease anyone who argued that there's no possessive pronoun in the Swahili sentence. But yes, usually if you're referring to a body part it's assumed it's your own if it's not explicitly stated. So you'd say 'mguu unauma' to mean 'my foot hurts'

[wellspring3]

So, what every one is saying is that English and swahili are a lot diffrent.

[nzfleisher]

This English sentence is definitely a run-on. It should have a conjunction after "hot" or be broken into two sentences, otherwise it is grammatically incorrect. Is this true for the Swahili sentence too, or is it acceptable this way?

[piguy3]

I'm curious about the extent of the "missing" possessives in Swahili.

For instance, is it common to omit them in regards to family members?

[MwaminiRuk]

Jamani kwanini auandiki mu luga yetu ya kiswahili

[BenMack8]

... and I should be able to indicate possession.

[Norbert560953]

I miss 'my'