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Or, if you are just freestyling, you can stay here. This is where the latest grammar explainers will be posted, month-by-month.
The latest explainer for May 2025 is the second explainer about Copulatives, using na- (which actually means ‘and’ as well as ‘having’). You can see it here or scroll down.
The previous one was all about making sentences, and talking about the weather! You can go directly to this page to see it, or scroll down.
The April 2025 explainer was Copulatives / iziBanjalo.
The March 2025 explainers were: Noun Classes (part 1 and 2) and The Way (using locatives).
These are the latest explainers for those who are keeping things up to date!
iziBanjalo / Copulatives Part 2: using na-
This is the second of four grammar explainers about copulatives, which are things that isiZulu has and English does not have.
| 1. izibanjalo (isiqephu sesibili) | copulatives (part 2) | overall grammar |
| Copulatives are one of the biggest headaches for isiZulu-learners, especially those starting from the perspective of Indo-European languages like English | isiZulu does not have a separate word (or even a verb!) for the concept of having: no verb for ‘have’ or ‘has’ or ‘had’ | Unlike Indo-European languages, what isiZulu does is that it changes the word to indicate possession (whether it’s a noun, a descriptive word or an adverb) by adding something to it. |
| In order to express having something, isiZulu begins with the idea of adding things together in a list: the key here is the idea of ‘and’ – see below to understand more. | Once the na- is added to the beginning of a noun, you can then add a Subject Concord to it to show who has something. | Have a look at the Linjani izulu? section to see how this construction can be used to describe something’s condition. |
| Copulatives with na-are super important, because they are a common part of description and statement. | Be careful: you have to make sure that the coalescence between vowels (aka umlumbaniso) happens in order for you to make these phrases. | This explainer focuses on the way you say ‘have’ before a noun. the next section of copulatives will look at descriptives. |
In English, we add things together using the word ‘AND’. It’s a conjunction, meaning that it links two parts of speech, phrases or clauses together. There are some specific rules about using it, but generally it’s easy – if you want to add ‘bread’ to ‘cheese’ on a shopping-list, you say ‘bread AND cheese’.
In isiZulu, the thing that works the same way as this example is the formative NA-. As you can see, from the dash following the two letters, this word doesn’t exist by itself. What you can also see is that it ends with an -A-, a vowel. Every single noun in isiZulu begins with a vowel, and the A of NA needs to join with those vowels. This results in three different sounds occurring commonly. The following examples will show this more clearly:
The three sounds, then, are A, E and O. You may be wondering where the combination of A+E is. You will never have to use that combination in isiZulu – not with na-, or with nga-, or with any of the other formatives.
So when you hear a word starting with ne- it means that the noun stem starts with an i-.
As well as being used to show that two things are being added together in a list, the NA- construction is used in the following way:
isiZulu doesn’t have a verb like English’s “to have”. This is the construction it uses to say that.
If you need more explanation, or a different explanation, you can set up a session with Mabhengwane, or ask a question, or leave a comment here.
Linjani iZulu?
Let’s talk about the weather! This section forms the most crucial part of the isiSekelo sesiZulu – it shows you exactly how to go about forming an isiZulu sentence, while giving you some essential grammar.
Step 1 gives you a list of nouns, all grouped according to their noun classes. You will also see from Step 1 that nouns in isiZulu often have more than one meaning – allow yourself to explore all possible implications of the original meaning, and you’ll see that the secondary and tertiary meanings follow easily.
Step 1a looks at how to make a sentence or statement using only the nouns. This is useful if you’re wanting to say ‘there is…’ or ‘it is…’ (whether regarding weather or not, this rule comes in handy).
Step 2 gives you the first instance of concords. It shows how you make and use a concord to show that a specific noun is doing the verb. Concords show connection between nouns and other parts of speech (like adjectives, verbs and other nouns), mainly through sound. If you’re ever unsure about what the subject of a verb is, you can use the last one in this list – ku-. It’s the closest thing that isiZulu has to ‘it’.
Step 3 is something that you should treat like a decision tree – uhlelo lwesenzo. Every time you construct a verb statement in isiZulu, your first choice is whether the action happened or not. Every verb in isiZulu can be expressed as a positive (‘the boy ran’) or a negative (‘the boy didn’t run’). And that choice determines the form that the verb takes in each tense (present, past, or future). If you are lucky enough to have the iNkombandlela cards, these are the light blue pieces with dashes and labels. If you look at the two columns of isiZulu fragments, you’ll see that they either have a dash after them, on both sides of them, or before them. This shows where they occur in a verb – first, in the middle, or last.
Step 4 is like Step 1, except with verbs. Basically, you can add in the pieces from Step 3 into these verb forms, with some modifications. We’ll be exploring these more soon.
Step 5 includes some very necessary vocabulary – time phrases that you will hear very often. They can occur at the end of a phrase or at the beginning, depending on what you want to emphasise.
Step 1. Choose the subject of your sentence
Step 1a. Use these nouns directly
The resulting phrase translates as follows:
kunemvula (there is rain)
kunomoya (there is wind = it is windy)
etc.
Step 2. Use concords to link to verb-type things
Step 3. Choose the details of your action
Step 4. Choose what happens
Step 5. Add in some time markers
You can also add in any other adverb at this point. Adverbs either come first or last in a phrase or sentence!
Let me know what sentences you form, and where you encounter issues. Just a word of warning – some of the verbs prefer to be in the perfect form (-ile), which means they will sound a bit weird!