Anyone who has ever learned isiZulu with Mabhengwane knows that he uses colour and memory-aids to help with understanding the complexities of the language. He’s been teaching isiZulu with handwritten cards since 2012. Since the beginning of 2024, he has been trialling a printed version – even though his handwriting is quite good, it’s better to have a standard way of representing things!
He has called his set of cards iNkombandlela / the Guide, and it has the so much awesomeness included!
All izivumelwano (the concords): every single Subject Concord (17 of them, in red); Object Concord (another 17 of them, in orange); all the Adjective-Relative Concords (13 of them, in forest green with purple markings); all the Possessive Concords (13) and Possessive Pronominal Stems (17 of them, in pink); and a handy A4 chart showing how the vowels combine (umlumbaniso) and are separated (ukwehlukanisa) when they come into contact with each other.
All parts of uhlelo lwesenzo (verb conjugation): positive and negative prefixes, infixes and suffixes for all tenses (14 of them, in light blue); and common izimpambosi (6 of them, in light green); and a handy A4 chart showing exactly how everything fits together.
16 representative nouns for each of the 8 iziGaba zamaBizo (the Noun Classes) with a distinctive symbol for each Class, in dark blue.
192 common verb-stems, including: monosyllabic, vowel-verbs, disyllabic and polysyllabic; in black.
All 15 iziPhawulo (the True Adjectives, in forest green) and 32 representative iziBaluli or iziMelana (the Relatives, in purple).
Grammar formatives: na-, nga- and ka- (for copulatives and adverbs, in brown); y-, ng-, l- and w- (true copulatives, in turquoise).
The cards are printed with isiZulu only (except for the verb-conjugation cards, which have numbers for their positions, as well as markings indicating what each piece is for), and are blank on the reverse so you can add in your own meaning. This means you can use these for learning isiZulu from any other language!
That’s 471 individual cards and 3 A4 charts!
All of this comes in a box to keep them safe, and there are plans to release special updates for vocabulary and specialised grammar.
If you want one, please go to this link and state that you want the Guide (or the Cards) and I will arrange for a quote for delivery to you!