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In this chapter, we are going to cover something simple, but necessary: the numbers 1–10.
I’ll give you the following:
- 1-10
- some commentary on variation, etc.
- information on the basics of using numbers in noun phrases (e.g., “two houses” in English)
Numbers 1-10
Number | Bambara |
---|---|
1 | kelen |
2 | fila1 |
3 | saba |
4 | naani |
5 | duuru2 |
6 | wɔɔrɔ |
7 | wolonfila3 |
8 | segin4 |
9 | kɔnɔntɔn |
10 | tan |
Use with nouns
Using these numbers with nouns is very straightforward. You simply place the number after the noun. For instance:
adamaden + saba
human being + three‘three human beings’
Or:
kalo + kɔnɔntɔn
month/moon + nine‘nine months’
Note that in neither case did I need to make adamaden
or kalo
plural; the number next to the noun is enough to signal that there’s multiple of them.
And yes, it’s true that we haven’t covered pluralization yet—we will in "Plurals"!
Vocab
Coming soon n'Ala sɔnna!
- kelen
- one
- fila [fla]
- two
- saba
- three
- naani
- four
- duuru
- five
- looru
- five [possible Jula variant]
- wɔɔrɔ
- six
- wolonfila
- seven
- wolonwula
- seven [possible Bambara variant]
- segin
- eight
- kɔnɔntɔn
- nine
- tan
- ten
- fu
- zero; nothing
- joli
- how many; how much
- adamaden
- human being
- kalo
- month; moon
Vocab list will be here someday!
Flashcards will be here someday!
Exercises
Exercises will be here someday!