[ARCHIVE] Verb Conjugations (Mnyambuliko wa Vitenzi)

[Fnirk1]

Orignally posted by: machieng https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/38914284

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I'm sourcing notes from this very useful website. All explanations are in Swahili, so this is a brief English version; you can visit this website for more examples!

Here are the types of conjugations in Swahili:

Conjugation	Definition	Example
Kutenda (to do)	verb in its simplest, ordinary form	eat, sleep
Kutendea	to do for/on behalf of	cook for
Kutendana	reciprocal direct actions	see each other
Kutendeana	reciprocal actions on behalf of each other	to cook for each other
Kutendwa	(of an object) to be a direct recipient of an action	to be selected
Kutendewa	(of an object) to have something done for/on behalf of (passive form of kutendea)	to be cooked for
Kutendeka	a completed action/occurrence OR a doable action	to be broken, to be readable
Kutendesha	to make someone do an action	self-explanatory

these are some of the more common conjugations you'll come across. A couple of things to note:

• the suffixes of these conjugations are not the same for all verbs e.g. 'kutendea' conjugation can have the suffixes -ea, -ia, 'kutendesha' can have the suffixes -sha, -za\n* some verbs in their ordinary form also contain some of the common suffixes of the other conjugations, so be cautious of that e.g. maliza (finish), elewa (understand), tumia (use)
• owing to the different types of verbs, not all conjugations are applicable to all verbs; depending on transitive vs intransitive, active vs passive, some verbs have a very finite number of possible conjugations e.g. if an action can't be done on behalf of someone, the conjugation kutendea does not apply

Here are just a few examples of different conjugations for some common verbs:

Kutenda	Soma (Read)	Elewa (understand)	Hudhuria (attend)	Pata (find)	Imba (sing)	Tafuta (seek)	Penda (love)
Kutendea	Somea	-	-	Patia	Imbia	Tafutia	-
Kutendana	-	Elewana	-	Patana	-	Tafutana	Pendana
Kutendeana	Someana	-	Hudhuriana	Patiana	Imbiana	Tafutiana	-
Kutendewa	Somewa	-	Hudthuriwa	Patiwa	Imbiwa	Tafutiwa	-
Kutendeka	Someka	Eleweka	Hudhurika	Patika	Imbika	Tafutika	Pendeka
Kutendesha	Somesha	Elewesha	Hudhurisha	Patiza	Imbisha	Tafutisha	Pendeza