Learn how to ask someone, "Write it down please"
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| In the last lesson, we covered how to ask, “How do you say this in Swahili?” It was Unasemaje hii kwa Kiswahili. Do you remember? In this lesson, because we don’t want you to be caught off guard in any kind of situation in Kenya, we are going to introduce a new phrase that’s very important to help you focus your skills – not on the sounds, but on the writing. So let’s start. |
| BODY |
| In Swahili, “Can you write it down, please?” is |
| Unaweza kukiandika chini tafadhali? |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Unaweza kukiandika chini tafadhali? |
| Once more: |
| Unaweza kukiandika chini tafadhali? |
| The first word, Unaweza, means “can you?” |
| (slow) Unaweza |
| Unaweza |
| Next we have kukiandika, which means “to write it.” |
| (slow) kukiandika |
| kukiandika |
| chini literally means “down” but in this case it implies “on” |
| chini |
| (slow) chini |
| chini |
| tafadhali is “please“, as you may remember from previous lessons. |
| All together: |
| Unaweza kukiandika chini tafadhali? |
| Literally, this means, "Can you write it down, please?” |
| Next, we have another way to express the same meaning. |
| Unaweza kukiandika hapa chini tafadhali? |
| “Could you write it down here please?’ |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Unaweza kukiandika hapa chini tafadhali? |
| Once more: |
| Unaweza kukiandika hapa chini tafadhali? |
| The only extra thing in this sentence is the word hapa, which is “in here” in English. |
| (slow) hapa |
| hapa |
| (slow) Unaweza kukiandika hapa chini tafadhali? |
| Unaweza kukiandika hapa chini tafadhali? |
| Once you have the written words, you may find that you have no idea how to pronounce them. In Swahili, “How do you pronounce this?” is |
| Unatamkaje hii? |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Unatamkaje hii? |
| Once more: |
| Unatamkaje hii? |
| The first word, Unatamkaje, means “how do you pronounce” |
| Unatamkaje, |
| (slow) Unatamkaje, |
| Unatamkaje, |
| Next we have hii, which means “this” as we have seen before. You should all be familiar with this by now. |
| The entire sentence again: |
| (slow) Unatamkaje hii? |
| Unatamkaje hii? |
| It might happen that people are not carrying a piece of paper or a pen. So before asking |
| Unaweza kukiandika chini tafadhali? |
| try asking |
| Je, una karatasi na kalamu? |
| “Do you have paper and pen?” |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Je, una karatasi na kalamu? |
| Once more: |
| Je, una karatasi na kalamu? |
| The first word, je, is used to make the sentence a question. |
| (slow) Je |
| je |
| When we use je with the word that follows, una, for “you have,” it becomes je una “do you have?” |
| je una |
| (slow) je una |
| je una |
| Then comes the word karatasi, which means “paper” |
| (slow) karatasi |
| karatasi |
| Then you have na, which in English is “and.” |
| (slow) na |
| na |
| The last word is kalamu which means “pen”. |
| (slow) kalamu |
| kalamu |
| Here’s the whole sentence: |
| Je, una karatasi na kalamu? |
| (slow) Je, una karatasi na kalamu? |
| Je, una karatasi na kalamu? |
| As usual, before asking about someone else’s stationery supplies, it’s a good idea to say “excuse me”, kunradhi, at the beginning of the sentence. When you use kunradhi, you can eliminate the question word je. |
Comments
Hide