Learn a few phrases so you can tell your hosts what you don't like to eat
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| INTRODUCTION |
| This lesson is not only for all of the vegetarians out there, but also for anyone with an aversion to a particular food! There are many reasons a person won't eat a particular food, and there may be times when communicating this is necessary. In this lesson, we'll go over some phrases to make sure you don't get any unwanted surprises on your plate. |
| BODY |
| In Swahili, “I am a vegetarian” is |
| Mimi mlaji mboga. |
| Let's break it down by syllable. |
| (slow) Mimi mlaji mboga. |
| Now let's hear it once more. |
| Mimi mlaji mboga. |
| The first word, mimi, means “I am” or “me.” |
| (slow) mimi. |
| Once more |
| mimi. |
| Then we have mlaji which means “eater.” |
| mlaji |
| (slow) mlaji |
| mlaji |
| Next is mboga, which means “vegetables” |
| mboga |
| (slow) mboga |
| mboga |
| Put together, mlaji mboga means “vegetarian.” |
| Let's break down this word and hear it one more time. |
| (slow) Mimi mlaji mboga. |
| Mimi mlaji mboga. |
| This means, “I am a vegetarian.” |
| Another way you can communicate that you don't eat a particular food, is by saying just that! |
| In Swahili, “I don't eat meat” is Mimi sili nyama. |
| Let's break it down by syllable. |
| (slow) Mimi sili nyama. |
| Now let's hear it once more. |
| Mimi sili nyama. |
| The first word, mimi, means, “I” as we have just learned. |
| Next, we have sili which in English is “I don’t”. |
| (slow) sili |
| sili |
| Last we have nyama, which means "meat". |
| (slow) nyama, |
| nyama. |
| Altogether, we have Mimi sili nyama. Literally, this means, “(I) don’t eat meat.” |
| (slow) Mimi sili nyama. |
| Mimi sili nyama. |
| We can use this sentence pattern for other kinds of food, by simply changing just one word! So let's look at some other possibilities. Let's try “cheese,” which in Swahili is jibini. |
| (slow) jibini |
| jibini |
| Now let's try the phrase with this word. “I don't eat cheese” in Swahili is Mimi sili jibini. |
| Let’s break it down by syllable. |
| (slow) Mimi sili jibini. |
| Now let’s hear it one more time. |
| Mimi sili jibini. |
| If you want to make sure a dish doesn’t have an ingredient you can’t or don’t want to eat, you should simply ask about it. For example if you want to make sure a meal doesn’t have meat, you should ask, Je, kuna nyama katika chakula hiki? “Is there meat inside this food” |
| (slow) Je, kuna nyama katika chakula hiki? |
| Je, kuna nyama katika chakula hiki? |
| The first word je as we learned earlier converts the sentence into a question. |
| Then you have kuna, which means “is there” |
| (slow) kuna |
| kuna |
| The next word nyama, as you might remember from the sentence before, means “meat”. |
| (slow) nyama |
| nyama |
| The next word katika means “in” |
| The word that follows, chakula, is “food” |
| and the last word, hiki, means “this” |
| Therefore, katika chakula hiki means “in this food?” (slow) katika chakula hiki? |
| katika chakula hiki? |
| Let’s hear it one more time. |
| (slow) Je, kuna nyama katika chakula hiki? |
| Je, kuna nyama katika chakula hiki? |
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