"To talk about someone"
Translation:Kumkalia mtu kitako
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It would really help to have the literals in the helps. Then we could make sense out of the idiom.
the whole section needs to be improved by first giving the literal meaning and then the implied meaning and some explanation of that if it is not intuitive
Kukalia = to be sat (on)", mtu = person, kitako = ass. So literally: To sit on a person's ass?? Hmm, I prefer to sit on my own.
Since the Swahili expression sounds rather negative, I imagine this could be a colloquial expression for 'to gossip about someone'?
I asked a native speaker and he said it means to hold somebody back or to control someone
At this rate its just guess work..it is very hard for a learner tp figure the translation out
Of course, one simple way to translate "to talk about someone" (with a negative connotation) is kumsema mtu. E.g., Watu walikuwa wikimsema sana Abedi, lakini alipopata kazi nzuri Mombasa, ilibidi wanyamaze.
Plug the phrase "kumkalia mtu kitako" into a Google search, and ignoring links to Duolingo itself, check out the results. It would seem that according to some sources, the above is a correct translation, but other sources offer a different translation, something like "to hold someone back (from progressing/suceeding etc). I'm not prepared to say whether these sources are reliable or not. But this does indicate a general concern with using proverbs, sayings, etc to "spice up" a conversation or a piece of writing: some proverbs and sayings mean different things to different people.
