37.
SHow TO DESCRIBE
-ntle beautiful, nice
-leele tall (for a person)
-telele tall, long (for things)
-tona big, large
-nnye small, tiny
-ntsi many, much
-kima thick, stout
-sesane thin, narrow
In Setswana, adjectives do not stand alone unchanged as in
English. They exist as stems and take on a prefix which is determined by the noun they modify. For example, to form "beautiful person," you take the noun (motho person) and the adjective stem (-ntle beautiful), and join them in this way:
motho + yo + montle = a beautiful person (lit. a person of beauty.)
examples: motho + yo + moleele = motho yo moleele
(person) (of) (tallness)=(a tall person)
selo + se + sentle = selo se sentle
(thing) (of) (beauty) = (a beautiful thing)
dibuka + tse + dintle = dibuka tse dintle (books) (of) (beauty)= (beautiful books)
Note: Nouns belong to different classes. Each class has a
different way to form the preposition ("of") which joins the noun and the adjective stem. The three nouns in the
above examples are from different classes and form "of"
in slightly different ways.
If you omit the combining preposition and write, for
example, "motho montle" you change the meaning significantly.
"Motho montle" becomes "The person is beautiful."
Similarly,
motho moleele = The person is tall. selo sentle = The thing is beautiful. dibuka dintle = The books are beautiful.
Colors
-sweu or -tshweu white
-ntsho black
-tala blue or green
-khubidu red