Prerequisite: Lesson 2.
New words
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| anak | child |
| rafiki | friend |
| din | day |
| rat | night |
| pagi | morning |
| aksam | evening |
| kan | to see |
| sema | to say, to speak |
| bil | to know |
| nomu | to drink |
| kabir | big |
| keci | small |
| mal | bad |
| doktor | doctor |
Talking about people
The sentence shape has not changed since Lesson 2 — subject, verb, object.
| Amadunia | English |
|---|---|
| Mi kan rafiki. | I see a friend. |
| Anak nomu akua. | The child drinks water. |
| Ta bil nama. | She knows the name. |
| Rafiki sema. | The friend speaks. |
Describing
A quality word follows what it describes:
| Amadunia | English |
|---|---|
| Dom kabir. | The house is big. |
| Anak keci. | The child is small. |
| Ca hao. | The tea is good. |
| Rat mal. | The night is bad. |
There is no separate word for is. Dom kabir is complete as it stands.
The parts of the day
— Din hao? — Ya, din hao. Sol kabir!
— Rat hao? — No. Rat mal.
| Amadunia | English |
|---|---|
| Pagi hao. | The morning is good. |
| Aksam hao. Rat mal. | The evening is good. The night is bad. |
Four words for the day, and until September 4, 2026 this lesson had two. pagi used to arrive in Lesson 22 and aksam in Lesson 24 — nineteen and twenty-one lessons after din and rat, for words of exactly the same kind. Text 15, written for Lesson 10, opens Sol lai — the sun comes — because it could not say in pagi.
Saying in the morning cannot be done yet: Sol kabir in pagi needs in,
which arrives in Lesson 15, and
check.py refused this lesson when the sentence was first put
in it. Until Lesson 15 these four words stand as subjects and as things
described: Pagi hao, Rat mal.
Asking for help
— Salam! Mi mau doktor. — Ok. Doktor lai.
Practice
- Mi kan anak. — I see a child.
- Rafiki nomu ca. — The friend drinks tea.
- Doktor bil. — The doctor knows.
- Dom keci. — The house is small.
- Din kabir, rat keci. — The day is big, the night is small. — cang and duan, long and short, arrive in Lessons 13 and 16.
What is still open
Tense, plurals, possession and questions have all since been settled — see Lessons 4, 5, 6 and 7. Sentence 4 above, first offered as a guess, turned out to follow the rule. The rising-tone question used since Lesson 1 was confirmed as the rule.