My Vocabulary

Today, we took the big quiz. Here is the vocabulary I needed to know for the dialog. There's a lot. I didn't remember most of it, but I was able to use the important, big words. Hopefully I did well!

εdeεn [eh-dee-ehn] = what
nimdeε [neem-dee-eh] = knowledge
nnwom = music
nnwomtofo⊃ [nn-wohm-toe-foe-ah] = musicians
nnwomto⊃ [nn-wohm-toe-ah] = singing
twerε = to write

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)

More Classroom Conversation

Yεfrε me Akua [Aquia] Alison!
(My name is or, literally, They call me "Girl born on a Wednesday" Alison)

Today, we learned about a few more ways to greet people, especially ways relevant to the classroom. I also learned my Akan "day" name (Akua or Akua Alison if there is more than 1 Akua present). Most of the day was spent working on classroom and travel phrases. We also reviewed our homework, but didn't finish.

How to greet the teacher:
Student: Abusuapanin maahã. [Abuiswiapaneen, maaha(n)] = Good afternoon, professor.
Teacher: Ya enua / Yenua. [Ya enwia / Yenwia] = You, too.
Student: Na wo hõ te sεn? [Na, wo ho(n) teh sen] = How are you?
Teacher: Onyame adom, meho yε. [Onyami adom, meho(n) ye] = By God's grace, I'm well.