3 replies to this topic

[sedon_jr]

Hey man.
Kiswahili Syntax is somehow different from English so it is hard to give a straight translation of those words,but let me try to put it like this,starting with "The"
"the" in English is an article which is used before a noun which has already been mentioned.ie. I ate an apple
The apple was sweet
The is also used before nouns which are not man made like The sky,the ground........
*In Kiswahili we dont have articles like that.We just start a sentence although sometimes those gapes are filled by other words like:
Nilikula chungwa
Lile chungwa lilikuwa tamu
*But "lile" here is not an article but is just a gape filler and it could be also come after chungwa
*So in short We dont have a word in kiswahili which stands for "the" in English

"is" in English performs different roles.Look in the following sentenses:
1.Juma4 is a boy
*In this case "is"="ni" in Kiswahili,Thus that sentense can be put like this in kiswahili
Juma4 ni mvulana

2.Juma4 is going to the market
*Here is has been used as helping verb but in kiswahili we dont have helping verbs in present continous tense.hence in kiswahili we would say:
Juma4 anakwenda sokoni
*So in short "is" is taken in kiswahili as "ni"[refer example 1.]
*opposite of "is" is "is not"[isn't]
*opposite of "ni" is "si"or"sio"
Hope I've tried to put it clear.

[sedon_jr]

Yeah, those are much simple:

1.Angel in Swahili is Malaika

2.There are several word in Swahili standing for devil though the most common is Shetani.Other words are ibilisi and pepo