Learn how to ask someone for a picture of you and to ask someone to take their picture
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| INTRODUCTION |
| How many times have you been on a trip with your camera, trying to immortalize an epic moment? In Kenya, there are so many landscapes and people to tempt your camera, that you won’t put it away! So we’ll be devoting this lesson to more phrases about taking photos. |
| BODY |
| In the last lesson, we learned how to ask someone to take your picture: |
| Unaweza kunipiga picha tafadhali? |
| But what if you want to take someone else’s picture? Kenyan people are certainly interesting enough! |
| “Can I take your picture?” in Swahili is |
| Naweza kuchukua picha yako tafadhali? |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Na - we - za ku - chu - ku - a pi - cha ya - ko |
| ta - fa - dha - li? |
| Once more: |
| Naweza kuchukua picha yako tafadhali? |
| The first word, naweza, means “could I.” |
| (slow) na - we - za |
| naweza |
| This is a pretty polite way to say “could I.” |
| Next comes kuchukua , which means “can take.” |
| (slow) ku - chu - ku - a |
| kuchukua |
| Then comes picha, which you probably remember as “picture.” |
| (slow) pi - cha |
| picha |
| The word that follows, yako, means “yours” |
| (slow) yako |
| yako |
| The last word, tafadhali, is a very familiar word that means “please.” |
| tafadhali |
| (slow) tafadhali |
| tafadhali |
| The whole request is... |
| Naweza kuchukua picha yako tafadhali? |
| ・ |
| In situations that don’t call for politeness, such as if you’re asking to take a young person’s photo, you can ask |
| Naweza kuchukua picha yako? |
| (slow) Naweza kuchukua picha yako? |
| Naweza kuchukua picha yako? |
| The only thing we did was remove the word tafadhali, which as you know means “please” and usually makes the sentence polite. |
| Therefore, the more casual question was |
| Naweza kuchukua picha yako? |
| ・ |
| Other places where you’ll need permission to take pictures, are museums, art galleries, and shops. |
| “Can I take a picture in here?” in Swahili is |
| Naweza chukua picha humu ndani? |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Naweza chukua picha humu ndani? |
| And once again: |
| Naweza chukua picha humu ndani? |
| The first word, naweza, as you may remember, means |
| “could I.” |
| We know that chukua means “take.” |
| By now you know very well that picha means |
| “picture”. |
| The word humu is demonstrative, and in this case indicates a place, “in here” |
| (slow) humu |
| humu |
| The last word ndani means “inside.” |
| ndani |
| (slow) ndani |
| ndani |
| Therefore, humu ndani will mean “in this place” |
| (slow) hu - mu nda - ni |
| humu ndani |
| So the whole request is |
| (slow) Na - we - za chu - ku - a pi - cha hu - mu nda - ni? |
| Naweza chukua picha humu ndani? |
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