Learn how to ask "Who?"
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| Welcome 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 ask "When" questions in Swahili. |
| This time, we are going to ask questions using the interrogative word "Who?", nani. |
| Imagine you’re in class, and there seems to be a new classmate. You ask your friend |
| Yule ni nani? |
| [slowly] Yule ni nani? |
| So let’s break down this answer. |
| First we had- |
| Yule means “that person.”As there is no gender used in the Swahili language, it can mean either. |
| ni is “is.” |
| nani is the basic question word for "Who" in Swahili. |
| Altogether, it is Yule ni nani? |
| So in Swahili, "Who" is mainly translated as nani to ask about someone's identity. |
| It takes the same form in both the singular and the plural. For example, if you are browsing a photo album and want to ask who the people in the pictures are, you would ask |
| Hawa ni akina nani? |
| “Who are these people?” |
| The question word nani also conjugates in all different cases both in the plural and in the singular. In this lesson, we’ll take a look at the most commonly used ones. |
| Nani only works for people, so you can't use it to ask about objects. |
| When talking about animals, you usually use yupi; However, yupi is also used for people. |
| As an interrogative word, nani can also be used to ask who did something. |
| For example, Nani aliwosia sinema hii? This means "Who directed this movie?" |
| Nani is also used when you want to know to whom something belongs. In this case, the meaning is different, as it can be translated to "whose." |
| So if you want to ask "Whose cell phone is this?" you will have to say Simu hii ni ya nani? |
| If we break down this question, it is- |
| simu, which is "cell phone" |
| hii, is demonstrative “this” showing the object closer to the speaker. |
| ni means “is” and ya is “for”. Then finally we have nani which simply means “whose”. |
| If you thought the cell phone might be owned by more than one person, you would add akina before nani in the plural. In this case, it will be Simu hizi ni za akina nani? Notice that in the plural hii changes to hizi and ya tu za. |
| Another useful conjugation of nani is -a nani eg ya nani, which means “for whom”. |
| -a takes different forms depending on the noun being used. |
| For example in the sentence, Kikombe cha nani? for “Whose cup?” The noun kikombe takes cha. Notice the ch that has been added to -a. |
| So if you want to know "For whom is this letter?" You would ask, |
| Barua hii ni ya nani? Or if it is for more than one person, |
| Barua hizi ni za nani? |
| Have you noticed that the noun barua takes (y)a in the singular and (z)a in the plural? |
| And if you wanted to find out “from whom” the letter is, the question word changes into |
| Barua hii imetoka kwa nani? |
| Or in the plural, if the letter had been written by more than one person, |
| Barua hizi zimetoka kwa akina nani? |
| Lets see another example: |
| Kitabu hiki ni cha nani? “Whose book is this?” |
| In plural, this will be Vitabu hivi ni vya nani? Whose books are these? |
| If you are referring to many people, you would say, Vitabu hivi ni vya akina nani? |
| “Who is there?” is also a useful sentence to remember. For instance, when you get a knock on your door, and you want to know who it is, you can simply ask Ni nani? which directly translates to “Who is there?” Also, if you get a phone call and the caller forgets to introduce himself, you can politely ask |
| Samahani, ni nani? |
| “Excuse me, who is this?” |
| And now it’s time for Medina’s Insights |
| Before ending this lesson, Let’s summarize a few ways to use and conjugate the word nani: |
| - Nani is the basic "Who" as in Wewe ni nani? “Who are you?” |
| - -a nani indicates ownership - it is the equivalent of "Whose", as in "Whose pencil is this?" - Hii ni penseli ya nani? |
| - -a nani is also used to mean “to whom”, as in “to whom does this belong” - Hiki ni cha nani? |
| - Kutoka kwa nani would be “from whom”, as in “from whom is the e-mail - Barua pepe imetoka kwa nani? |
| In this lesson, we learned how to correctly use the interrogative word for "Who", nani and also some of its common conjugations. |
| The next lesson will be the last in this absolute beginner series. |
| We will deal with the last but not least common interrogative word mbona. Do you already know what it means? If not, you’ll find out in the next Kiswahili kwa dakika tatu lesson. |
| Kwaheri, tuonane tena! |
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