Pluralizing nouns, Negative & Perfect Tenses

Fakyε me (forgive me) because this entry is a day late. "Fakyε me," or "Mo mfa nkyε me" in long form, implies that you're guilty and you're asking for the people you kept waiting to forgive you.

At the end of yesterday's session, we learned the Twi words for day, week, month, and year. Today, we'll learn how to transform them into plural forms. It's very tricky. Our teacher wants us to focus on a few main rules for pluralizing, rather than try to remember all of them. If pluralizing sounds really complicated, it is. Way too complicated! Here are the main rules and several examples:

• Replace beginning vowels with the prefix "a-" for words that begin with e ε o ⊃
• ⊃dan (house) --> adan (houses)
• bosome (month) --> abosome (months)

Homework 2

We had a real homework assignment today. We had to write a summary of a film clip we watched in class, list 10 words that start with e ε ⊃, and do an exercise in our book. I'll spare you the first part, but the vocab and book exercise might be useful.

10 words that begin with e ε ⊃:

εbo⊃ = cost, price

⊃h⊃ho⊃ [aw-haw-ho-AW] = guest

εfã [ehfa(n)] = half, part

εhyeε [eh-shieh] = heat

εk⊃m [ehkohm] = hunger

emu [i-moo] = inside

⊃bra [aw-brah] = life

edwa [e-jwah] = market

εsε / εw⊃ sε [eseh] = must …, necessary that …, ought to …

εdan / ⊃dan [eh-dan] = room, house

Numbers / N⊃ma

Maadwo!

Earlier today, we learned how to count! Numbers 0-10 are difficult to remember, so we've actually taken the lesson very slowly. I don't know why, but 2 and 3 are pretty long. It would be nice to find out why. Also, 0 means "nothing" so it counts as both a quantity and a noun. Here are the n⊃ma from 0-10:

0 hwéé [whehh]
1 baakõ [bahhko(n)]
2 mmienu [mmee-ehnoo]
3 mmeεnsã [mmee-ehnza(n)]
4 (ε)nan [eh-nine]
5 (e)num [ay-noom]
6 (e)nsĩã [ayn-seeah(n)]
7 (ε)nson [ehn-sOn]
8 nw⊃twe [en-wah-chweh]
9 (ε)nkron [ehn-krawn]
10 (e)du [ay-doo]

Note: To use numbers as qualifiers of nouns (to express the quantity of something), place the number after the noun.

Who are you?

Today, we learned how to talk about where we're from and who we are.

For example:
Yε woo me [Yeh woo mi] Redondo Beach. = I was born in Redondo Beach.
Mefiri [Meefeeree] California. = I'm from California.
Meyε Californiani. [Miyeh California-nee] = I'm a Californian.
Mete [Meetee] New York. = I live in New York. (Depending on the context, "te" is either "sense" or "currently live".)
Mefiri aburokyire. [Meefeeree ah-booroh-cheereh] = I'm from overseas.