Prerequisite: Lesson 7.
New words
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| mersi | thank you |
| plis | please |
| pardon | sorry, excuse me |
| madad | help |
| pesa | money |
| market | market, shop |
| rabota | work |
| insan | person |
| sini | here |
| sasa | now |
| garam | hot |
| barid | cold |
Most of these you already know. mersi, pardon, plis, market travel the world as they are; insan, madad, pesa are shared across a dozen languages each. Amadunia only wrote them down.
Why madad is not in a sentence here. It is glossed “help; to help”, a noun and a verb at once. Until that is settled, Mi mau madad is two sentences at the same time — I want help and I want to help — so this lesson teaches the word and waits. See the briefing.
This paragraph called madad the only such root until September 5, 2026. There are two, and the second is rabota, taught in the table above and used three times on this page — Mi rabota sini, Yu rabota nali, Insan-insan rabota sasa. The audit that produced “the only” read the dictionary’s glosses and not the sentences, and verb-chains.md recorded the correction on September 4 without this lesson hearing about it. rabota cannot be held back the way madad is: the course needs both of its readings already, which is exactly what makes its decision the expensive one.
The three words that open every door
| Plis. | Please. |
| Mersi. | Thank you. |
| Pardon. | Sorry. / Excuse me. |
They work alone, and they work at either end of a sentence:
— Pardon! Market nali? — Market sini. — Mersi!
Excuse me! Where is the market? — The market is here. — Thank you!
Asking for help
— Madad! Plis! — Ke? — Mi mau doktor. — Ok. Doktor saufa lai.
Help! Please! — What? — I want a doctor. — Ok. A doctor will come.
At the market
— Salam! Yu mau ke? — Mi mau ca garam. Berapa pesa? — Du pesa. — Ok. Mersi!
Hello! What do you want? — I want hot tea. How much money? — Two pesa. — Ok. Thanks!
berapa pesa — literally “how many money” — is the whole of asking a price.
Here and now
| Mi sini. | I am here. |
| Rafiki mi sini? | Is my friend here? |
| Mi mau ca sasa. | I want tea now. |
| Doktor saufa lai sasa. | The doctor will come now. |
Hot and cold
| Ca garam. | The tea is hot. |
| Akua barid. | The water is cold. |
| Din garam, rat barid. | The day is hot, the night is cold. |
| Mi mau akua barid, plis. | I want cold water, please. |
Work and people
| Mi rabota sini. | I work here. |
| Yu rabota nali? | Where do you work? |
| Insan hao. | A good person. / The person is good. |
| Cok insan sini. | Many people here. |
Practice
- Pardon, yu bil market nali? — Excuse me, do you know where the market is?
- Mersi, rafiki! — Thanks, friend!
- Mi mau ca, plis. — I want tea, please.
- Berapa pesa? — Tri pesa. — How much? — Three.
- Insan-insan rabota sasa. — The people are working now.
- Ca yu garam? — No, barid. — Is your tea hot? — No, cold.
What you can already say
Eight lessons, 81 roots. You can now be polite, ask for help, find a place, ask a price, say where you are and when, and describe heat and cold — enough to get through a day somewhere you have never been.
A note on word order. sini and sasa go at the end of the sentence, place before time. This became the rule in Lesson 15.