This is the first of four grammar explainers about copulatives, which are things that isiZulu has and English does not have.
| 1. izibanjalo (isiqephu sokuqala) | copulatives (part 1) | 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 being: no word for ‘is’, ‘am’ or ‘are’. | Unlike Indo-European languages, what isiZulu does is that it changes the word (whether it’s a noun, a descriptive word or an adverb) by adding something to it. |
| Have a look at the picture below to see how to do this with nouns. | Listen to the audio below for more information. | Have a look at the Question Words explainer to see how this affects discussions of ‘What?’ and ‘Who?’ |
| Copulatives with nouns are super important, because they are the most common thing apart from verbs in any sentence | Be careful: many first-language speakers simply emphasise the first vowel of a noun, rather than adding the traditional sounds to them. | this explainer focuses on the way you say ‘is’ before a noun. the next one will look at adjectives. |
If you are still lost, you can ask uMabhengwane for help. Short answers are mahala, but if you need a longer answer you can schedule a lesson with him.
If you are confident that you understand this piece of grammar, you can do the assignments related to it, and you can check out the assessment for it.