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Lesson Transcript

Hamjamboni na karibuni tena. Welcome back to Swahilipod101.com’s “Kiswahili kwa dakika tatu,” The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Swahili.
In the last lesson, we learned how to use some common Swahili adjectives.
In this lesson, we will start a series dedicated to some of the most common Swahili verbs, the ones you can’t avoid hearing!
The first verb in our series will be kwenda,
which means "to go". First, let’s take a look at how this verb conjugates with different pronouns.
Ninaenda- “I am going”, Unaenda - “you go”, Anaenda - “he/she goes”, Tunaenda- “we go”.
If someone asks you Unaenda wapi wikendi? That means "Where are you going for the weekend?"
So if you were going to your home in the countryside, you would say Ninaenda mashambani. [slowly] Ninaenda mashambani.
Let’s break down this answer.
First we had-
Ninaenda which is "I am going..."
After that came the word for the place that many Kenyans spend their Christmas holidays, mashambani, the “countryside.” And to indicate that you are going to the countryside, you add the ending -ni. Usually -ni comes at the very end of a noun. In this case the noun mashamba, plural for “plantation”, takes a -ni at the end to indicate the place to where you are going.
The ending -ni is used in words such as shuleni, “to the beach”, jijini, “to the city”, ofisini, “to the office”. But it’s not the only case used to indicate where you are going.
In cases where you are specific about the name of the place, for example Nairobi, Mombasa, you don't have to add the ending -ni.
Let’s see how this works. Let’s say you will be going to your countryside in Kakamega. You could possibly say, Ninaenda Kakamega. Notice there is no -ni after the Kakamega.
Or if you are going to the zoo, which in Swahili is hifadhi, you would say
Ninaenda kwenye hifadhi.
[slowly] Ninaenda kwenye hifadhi.
Notice that ni is not added at the end.
Now it’s time for Medina’s Insights.
Do you still remember the verb -enda that we used in lesson 10? It’s a root for the word “go”. And it is often paired with personal pronouns: Here are a few to get you started:
I am going - Ninaenda.
You are going - Unaenda.
He/she is going - Anaenda
So if you ask your friend Utaenda wapi wikendi? it means “Where will you be going on the weekend?”, and makes the sentence sound a little bit softer.
Another good verb to pair with -enda is -dhani, “to think”. So if you are not yet 100% sure of your plans, you can say,
Nadhania kwenda kwenye bustani, which literally means “I am thinking of going to the park”.
In this lesson, we’ve learned how to use the verb -enda and match it with a grammatical case.
Next time, we’ll learn another very useful verb, -fanya.
Do you know what it means? I’ll be waiting for you with the answer and more useful Swahili phrases in the next Swahili kwa dakika tatu!
See you next time!

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