Asking questions

The question word comes last

In Chatelain's examples, the question word closes the question. You say the rest of the sentence, as you would for a statement, and add the question word at the end.

How to ask

1. Say the rest of the sentence.
2. Choose the question word from the table below: how, where, who or what sort of.
3. To ask how many, find the class of the noun and use the form of -kuxi that agrees with it.
4. Put the question word at the end.

You should now be able to build the questions in the sections below. They are Chatelain's own.

The question words

Three words for where

Chatelain says the three prefixes mark three places in relation to a thing: mu- inside it, bu- on its surface, and ku- outside it but near. He adds that in practice speakers do not follow this strictly. If you are unsure, the ku- form is the one in his example below.

A question and the word for where

These are Chatelain's practice sentences. He prints them without a translation, so the meaning below comes from the words he glosses himself.

How many

The word for how many is -kuxi, and it takes the prefix of the class of the noun counted, as a possessive does. Say the plural noun, then the form. Each row below is one class.

To answer, say the number with the noun. Numbers with nouns

Who and what sort of

Chatelain gives one word for who and one for what sort of. The second asks about quality or kind, and he builds the word for who from it. It is not a general word for what. The word for who comes at the end of a question about ownership: the example means whose slaves.

Points to watch

• For people, Chatelain gives two forms of how many, akuxi and kikuxi. He says kikuxi has a price in mind, as in how much money.
• The dictionary writes the ending of the how and where words with bh, as in kyebhi, kwebhi and bhwebhi. Chatelain writes b, and the course follows the dictionary.

Earlier in the course

• Numbers with nouns
• Counting to ten