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Swahili for Beginners

Time for verbs.


 Let's start with an irregular verb :D 


 Don't worry. This verb (at least for the forms that we are going to use) is the easiest of them all. (except of course for 'ni' which was one form for all persons.)

 Our new verb is: 


	 kuwa na - to have


 Again don't bother too much about the form. Already the infinitive form is somewhat irregular. Usually infinitives come in one single word. However, let's remember 'ku-' as the beginning for infinitives.


 In order to conjugate a verb we need 3 things:

<ul>
 <li>A - a person marker for every person</li>
 <li>B - a tense marker</li>
 <li>C - a verb stem</li>
</ul>
Of course there are plenty of other elements that you can mix into a verbform; you'd be surprised if I told you all the various options that Swahili offers for Prefixes, Suffixes and even Infixes... but let's keep the goodies for later and start with the basics.


 So: A- a person marker

<table class="ui celled table">
 <tbody>
 <tr>
 <td>ni-</td>
 <td>I</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>u-</td>
 <td>You</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>a-</td>
 <td>He / she</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>tu-</td>
 <td>We</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>m-</td>
 <td>You (pl)</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>wa-</td>
 <td>They</td>
 </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

B - a Tense marker 


 -na- is the Present Tense Marker

C - a Verb Stem
 And here we go lucky. With this verb - na - takes care of both tense marker and stem.

 So we end up with this:
<table class="ui celled table">
 <tbody>
 <tr>
 <td>Ni-na</td>
 <td>I have</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>U-na</td>
 <td>You have</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>A-na</td>
 <td>He has / She has</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>Tu-na</td>
 <td>We have</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>M-na</td>
 <td>You (pl) have</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>Wa-na</td>
 <td>They have</td>
 </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

 Je una mbwa? Do you have a dog?


 Nina watoto. I have children.


 Tuna mvulana na msichana. We have a boy and a girl.

 Let's go!

Question	Answer
I have	Nina
I have children.	Nina watoto.
you have	una
Do you have a dog?	Je una mbwa?
he has / she has	ana
She has problems.*	Ana matata. *btw I only allowed this intruder for the sake of Lion King vocabulary :XD We didn't study the right word class yet.
we have	tuna
We have a girl and a boy.	Tuna msichana na mvulana.
you (pl) have	mna
Do you have cockroaches?	Je mna mende ?
they have	wana
The guests have children.	Wageni wana watoto.
The traveler has a dog.	Msafiri ana mbwa.
The girl has a bird.	Msichana ana ndege.
The fishermen have fishes.	Wavuvi wana samaki.
That farmer has a sharp dog.	Mkulima yule ana mbwa mkali.
Those women have beautiful girls.	Wanawake wale wana wasichana wazuri.