Lesson 14

The N/N class

We have learned already several N/N class nouns.

We had those describing animals:

Simba, tembo, twiga, mamba, ndege, samaki, mbwa, paka, panya, buibui, mende

which all behave completely like M/Wa nouns, except for having no plural form.

We also saw persons:

kaka, dada, mama, baba, rafiki

which behave mainly like M/Wa nouns except for having no plural form and for using the possessive prefixes of the N/N class (yangu, zangu...)

Now we will look at some 'pure blood' N/N words :D

I chose words describing places, because I will introduce the verb kwenda - to go later on. Oooops spoiler alert !!!

But back to our N/N words.

The possessive endings are of course:

y- and z-

So: nchi yangu - my country

nyumba zako - your houses

barabara yao - their road

etc.

the words for 'of' (belonging to) are:

• 'ya' - for sg and
• 'za' - for plural

bandari ya bahari - the seaport ( the harbour of the sea)

barbara za nchi - country roads (the roads of the country)

Now for verbs:

• i - na* + root = sg
• zi - na* + root = pl

*(present tense marker)

Barabara i-na-enda - The road goes

Barabara zi-na-enda - The roads go

Kwenda - to go

* You might come across positive forms using 'kwenda' instead of 'enda' e.g. 'ninakwenda'. Don't worry much about them. They are less common and focus more on the actual fact of walking.

For our street to go anywhere we need to use the third person verbforms:

• a-naenda - he goes
• wa-naenda - they go

We now need to replace the M/Wa person markers (a- / wa-) with the N/N person marker (i-/zi-)

• i-naenda - it goes
• zi-naenda - they go

We still need a destination... for this we add '-ni' to the end of the place we want to go to.

• bahari-ni - to the sea
• nyumba-ni - to the house/ home
• nch-ni - to the country
• bandari-ni - to the harbour

For a person we use 'kwa' before the person:

• kwa mpishi - to the cook
• kwa mhandisi - to the engineer

For combined words we put 'kwenye' before the combo:

• kwenye bandari ya bahari - to the seaport
• kwenye barabara za nchi - to the country roads

Barabara inaenda nyumbani. - The street goes (leads) home.

Barabara zinaenda baharini. - The streets go to the sea.

Ninaenda kwa mvuvi. - I go to the fisherman.

Tunaenda kwenye bandari ya bahari. - We go to the seaport.

Let's have one more destination:

Shule - school

However with school there is a littie change. If we use kwenda shule-ni this will mean 'to got to the school building' or 'to go to the school right now'. If we want to say that we go regularly to school, that we are inscribed, that children have already reached schoolage... we say simply 'kwenda shule' without the '-ni' suffix.

Let's look at the negative forms.

* There is an additional 'w' to faciliate pronunciation.

On top of this we need the 3rd person N/N class forms in the negative:

Let's increase our vocabulary:

• leo - today
• sasa - now
• kila- every
• asubuhi - morning
• kila asubuhi - every morning
• pia - too / as well

Ninaenda nyumbani leo. - I go home today.

Kaka, je unaenda sasa? - Brother, are you going now?

Hatuendi nyumbani sasa. - We are not going home now.

Wanaenda baharini. - They are going to the sea.

Je wanaenda bandarini? - Are they going to the harbour?

Ndiyo, wanaenda bandarini pia. - Yes, they are also going to the harbour.

Je mnaenda kwenye nchi yenu? - Are you (pl) going to your country?

Hapana, hatuendi kwenye nchi yetu. - No, we are not going to our country.

Barabara zinaenda bandarini. - The road is going to the harbour.

Barabara haziendi kwenye bandari ya bahari. - The roads don't go to the seaport.

Click the Save lecture button once you're finished.