Word1.2% of everything written
sema
to say, to speak
- Where it comes from
- Swahili sema
- Group
- Actions
- First taught
- Lesson 3
- How often it is used
- 82 times in running Amadunia — 1.2% of every word written, the 17th commonest root. Counted upstream over the lessons, texts and phrasebook; the whole curve.
- In the published corpus
- 79 of the 1321 glossed sentence pairs use it. That is a narrower measure than the one above — only sentences carrying an English translation are in the corpus, and it is the measure you can check for yourself.
- Looked up in English as
- to say, to speak
- More than one
- sema-sema — the noun said twice, joined by a hyphen. Nothing is added and nothing inside the word changes, so nothing can become irregular. The rule.
In use12 shown
Sentences that use it.
Every one written by hand and checked against the rules. Shortest first.
- Rafiki sema.The friend speaks.lessons/lesson-03-people
- Ta suda sema.She spoke.lessons/lesson-04-tense
- Doktor-doktor saufa sema.The doctors will speak.lessons/lesson-05-plural
- Sema tena, plis.Say it again, please.lessons/lesson-16-school-and-time
- Mi proba sema.I try to speak.texts/text-10-mila-tahun
- Yu proba sema.You try to speak.texts/text-10-mila-tahun
- Mualim sema asan:The teacher says simply:texts/text-11-anak-katab
- Mi sema: "Kaifa?"I say: "How?"texts/text-20-in-skola
- Yu sema hao!You speak well!phrasebook
- Mi no sema yalan.I do not tell lies.lessons/lesson-22-doing-and-feeling
- — Yu sema benar?Are you telling the truth?texts/text-4-in-madina-baru
- Mama sema: "Kula, plis."Mother says: "Eat, please."texts/text-13-kula-una
You can also put English in and get Amadunia out, or take the whole corpus as a file.