Salibonani bangane (hello friends), we hope you are enjoying interacting and learning on the blog here. If you are new, please scroll down to the bottom posts and read your way up. If you would like to help answer questions or ask questions, please do so in the Community Questions tab. There are some new lessons up in the Lesson tab; there are now more than 35 lessons for you to learn Ndebele a bit more formally. If you spot any mistakes or would like to add something, feel free to comment.
Lesson 36 is an easy introduction on how you can say things that you will do in the future (isikhathi esizayo), such as "sizakudla" (we are going to eat) or "kaliyikuhamba" (you won't go). For fun lamuhla, here are some vegetables in Ndebele, comment if you can think of more.
- Itamatisi - Tomato (it is in the noun class "ili/ama", if you don't know what that means, hope on over to the Lessons tab to see the less than a dozen isiNdebele noun classes. For tomatoes it goes from itamatisi to amatamatisi, hence it is in the noun class "ili/ama").
- imbambayile (im/izim) - sweet potato (welcome back from the Lesson tab, if you know the noun classes now, you'll know the plural is izimbambayile for sweet potatoes).
- Igwili (ili/ama) - potato.
- Ithanga (ili/ama) - pumpkin.
- Amakhomane - vegetable marrows.
- Ijodo (ili/ama) - dry melon/ pig melon (ikhabe (ili/ama) is a watermelon by contrast.
- And a bonus one to make from the imibhida (vegetables) in a imbiza (saucepan/ pot) is umhluzi - soup.
Salani kahle (stay well). If you want to buy one of our books on simple Ndebele phrases that would be great, they are currently available on Amazon here. Otherwise, enjoy helping eachother to learn Northern Ndebele and keep having fun exploring the blog.