"Flowers smell good"

Translation: Maua yananukia

[DeborahvBeek]

How is this? Kunuka is to smell bad and kunukia is to smell good??

[machieng]

essentially. Kunuka can be ambiguous (you can say nuka vibaya/vizuri), but kunukia is to smell good

[giraffe__]

adding the "ia" to the end is an applicative transformation which i think takes a minor part of the original usage and makes it the major part. so because "kunuka" is mostly used as "to stink" but also can be used as "to smell good", it takes the minor part of it "to smell good" and makes it the main meaning of "kunukia". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Swahili_verbal_derivation#Applicative

then on top of that it gets ma class plural inflected "ya" to match with "flowers", https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yananukia#Swahili

[IndianaJBird]

The meaning of some verbs is changed if used in prepositional form.
Example-mfano:

-amka wake up -amkia greet someone

-nuka stink - nukia smell good

Duolingo has a habit of introducing intermediate language in beginner lessons with out explanation.

[RuBarnes]

Why is this not "wananukia"?

[Chutney17]

Mimi ni andika, "Maua inaharufu nzuri." Mbona siwezi kujibu kama hii?

[ThomBoye]

You are way over my level so i can’t respond very well, but your usage seems very very enviable! :-)