Lets learn lingala continues...

We had not finished with greetings;
In the previous lesson we learnt that ‘Ozali’ means ‘you’ and 'malamu means ‘well’
So ‘Ozali Malamu’ means ‘How are you?’(a reference for second person form)
‘Nazali’ means ‘I am’,
‘na’ means ‘and’,
‘yo’ means ‘you’(wewe)
so in a complte sentence when one is asked, ‘Ozali Malamu?’ (if you are ok) You will answer,
‘Eee,nazali Malamu.Na Yo?’ meaning, ‘I am fine. And you?’

‘Mama’ means ‘Mother’(singular) but changes to Bamama (Plural)
‘Mwana’, means,‘child’(singular) and ‘bana’(Children)
‘Mama’ can also mean ‘wife’
So if you are inquiring about someone’s wife and kids you will say;
‘Mama na bana azali malamu?’ meaning, ‘How is your wife and kids?’ …‘LOBA!!!’-SPEAK

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OK.
What about Bolingo? In high school that word was colloquial language for dick:)

Bolingo is love. I am confused here, I always thought “bolingo na ngai” means “my love” but here, you say “na” means “and”?

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@dingoo_wa_ingoo Lets go together; ‘Bolingo’ is love,'‘ngai’ is ‘me’ first person. The word ‘na’ can also mean ‘with’ but in this case it plays a possessive role to ‘Bolingo’, so literally translated it would be ‘Love and/with me’. This would not bring out the actual intended meaning.
By the way, lingala does not have a lot of vocabularies as compared to other bantu languages and so its common to find one word with two different meanings but only distinguished during a particular use.
Lingala also may not have a particular word to describe something or a situation and may use phrases for description which one has to be keen to follow .
For example; There is no direct word to mean ‘left or ‘right’(as in referring to direction). Instead they use feminine and masculine connotations to explain themselves i.e ‘On the right’ you say ‘ya mobali’ -mobali meaning ‘man’; ‘On the Left’ you say ’ ya Mwasi’ -Mwasi meaning Lady or wife… This will sound easy to Bantus especially Luhyas who can relate easily.

So matata ya mwasi should be wife problems ama?

@kush yule mnono …Exactly.

Hapo sawa

@ol monk …Sorry was away building the nation on the other side of the neighborhood where the grass is greener.To your concern: your phrase is coined from Lingala and corruption of English to mean ‘Iam Big mama’ i.e Naza- from Nazali and Mbingi-for ‘big’. However, the actual Lingala word for Big is Mobimba.Pole comrade.

So what do we do with all this lingala after learning it. I studied German in high school and as it turned out, it was one of those things teachers force you to learn but will have no application whatsoever in your life.

@Mathice U never know u might find yourself across the ‘big lakes’ region trading in nsoso and Loso i.e Chicken and rice.,Hustling the international way!

@ol monk can either mean sun of the earth,Light of the Earth.