"The nose smells"
Translation:Pua hunusa
11 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
I think this is trying to say that the nose smells [constantly, habitually, regularly, all the time]... hence Pua [noun class 9] hu-nusa, where hu- is for habitual or regular... but "the nose smells" seems like a direct translation should be Pua i-nusa or Pua i-na-nusa... is this not acceptable?
the sentence is in present simple tense, habitual, so the infix '-hu-' is used. The infix '-na-' is used in present simple tense for non-action verbs ('I like bananas' - 'Ninapenda ndizi') or for verbs in present continuous tense i.e. 'the nose is smelling' - pua linanusa
'Pua' is in the noun class 'Ji/Ma', and if you want to exclude the '-na-', you'd say 'pua lanusa'. For the noun class N/N you'd say 'yanusa'
949
A reasonable explanation -- except that I don't believe the "present tense, habitual" infix -hu- has been introduced yet, has it?
No, Habitual is several skills ahead, it even might be in the 3rd section, I am not quite sure. It has been brought up in one sentence in Present 3. But I also didn't remember as I skipped Present 3 as it is confusing chaos to me.
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Hi! Could you explain why, if "pua linanusa" (Ji/Ma), I am expected to translate "my nose" with "pua yangu" (N class) instead of "pua langu" (Ji/Ma)? Thanks!
Pua is Ji/Ma class? I have 2 dictionaries (books) and they both say it is N/N class?
I ain't smart enough... where does the hu comes from? I thought pua inanusa or pua linanusa should be correct, but hunusa sounds very similar to you do not smell ... would like some lesson notes to this topic as well...
As far as I understand the 'hu' indicates that the action is constantly being done - the nose habitually smells
how do we distinguish between this habitual prefix and the negative prefix 'hu'?
