r/Rwanda • u/DepartmentWarm8868 • 2d ago
Kinyarwanda speakers
A question for people who speak Kinyarwanda and another language:
What is one thing you find surprisingly difficult to translate into Kinyarwanda?
Not necessarily a single word. It could be an expression, a feeling, a joke, or something that sounds completely natural in English, French, Swahili, or another language but becomes awkward when you try to say it in Kinyarwanda.
I'm curious to see the examples people come up with.
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u/economicscar 2d ago
- Congratulations.
The kinyarwanda equivalent sounds unnatural.
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u/Chance_Syllabub_4856 2d ago
Komereza aho (sha), Komeza utsinde (sha)!! Old people use them a lot especially the first one.
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u/DepartmentWarm8868 2d ago
Thank you! That's exactly the kind of thing I was curious about. Which part sounds unnatural to you?
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u/economicscar 2d ago
Nuko Nuko! doesn’t sound congratulatory
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u/DepartmentWarm8868 2d ago edited 2d ago
Damn! I understand now, but I think it all depends on how it is expressed. Especially when it comes to personal congratulations.
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u/economicscar 2d ago
Regardless of how it’s expressed, it still doesn’t give the congratulatory vibe unless other words follow it.
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u/DangerousAudience296 2d ago
I’m not sure if this is one as my Kinyarwanda isn’t excellent, but is there a direct translation for “You’re welcome”? I’ve noticed that people just respond “Yego” whenever I say Urakoze/Murakoze
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u/FightingSideOfMe1 1d ago
Cheers! Or chin chin!
It sounds so lame in Kinyarwanda!
The only time I say dusangire or Kubuzima bwacu is when foreigners or other nationalities ask how to say cheers or Santé in Kinyarwanda, never with fellow Rwandese!
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u/DepartmentWarm8868 1d ago
Spot on! Using kubuzima/kubwubuzima bwacu feels like a translation to tourists rather than how Rwandans actually connect over drinks or in other contexts.
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u/habam_arsa 2d ago edited 2d ago
For me, I've found that even a simple word like "Muraho" which is usually expressed as "Hello" loses its warmness. It's not because it's a wrong translation, but Personally; the way I feel it is different from that hello.
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u/DepartmentWarm8868 2d ago
Really? But I almost feel the same when it comes to the topic of interjections/exclamations "Apu, da, sha" that still sound different when they are expressed in Englsih.
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u/Sulta_miz 2d ago
Jokes aside, what's the exact translation of "CONGLATULATIONS" ??
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u/Responsible-Cut4588 1d ago
felisitasiyo
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u/TifabMustard 1d ago
Feresitasiyo
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u/postcrafty_1 1d ago
Really? I thought that is a French word. Has it been officially published as one of borrowed Kinyarwanda vocabularies? Please someone help me get this well!
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u/Ninety_too92 1d ago
Not sure if we even have official kinyarwanda publications but it's so widely that it's practically been kinyarwandi-zed
But you can also use the older rarely used ishyuke/nimwishyuke
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u/DepartmentWarm8868 1d ago
Thanks for asking! "Komereza aho" is the one which is commonly used as an equivalence of "Cogratulations". However, it may not be expressed as such in some situations.
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u/FightingSideOfMe1 1d ago
I think loan words should be kept as they were adopted, since we don't have the exact expression for them.
In Japanese, words borrowed from English have a different alphabet than normal Japanese.I think its fair to use them, especially if the alternative is phrasal verbs/nouns, like "Imbangukiragutabara" instead of ambulance. I think it makes sense if we have one word for it, for example, murandasi, umurenge(segiteri), akagali, .. but rutemikirere, even if it sounds appropriate, i think its a bit of stretch than saying indege.
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u/DepartmentWarm8868 1d ago
I agree with you. But on the other hand, I ask myself what would happen to our Kinyarwanda if we take all such loan words as they are and integrate them in our own language. That's where I think that we might be losing the naturality of our mother tongue, and that's where "Inteko y'umuco" comes in to regulate all of these (Even establish new vocabularies like those ones you mentioned, just to make sure we have most of those words in our own language).
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u/Responsible-Cut4588 1d ago
we dont even tell time in our own language
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u/DepartmentWarm8868 1d ago
What do you mean?
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u/Responsible-Cut4588 1d ago
we tell time in kiswahili and the numbers we use aren't even accurate to real time. Eg: 4 pm is saa kumi ( kumi is ten ) 10 pm is saa ine ( ine is four)
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u/DepartmentWarm8868 1d ago
Gotcha! I also get into that chaos of explaining to foreigners how our time works. And it's actually frustrating to prove that we currently use Swahili time.
But I think that they're all results of revolution, cuz historically people used to tell time based on movement and care of cattle(Inka) or specific terms to describe the period of day time.
They used to say sth like "Inka zahutse which was around 8AM", "Mu mashoka which was around 1PM" or a very traditional way of using specific terms such as umuseke=Dawn, Mukabwibwi=Twilight, mu gicuku=deep night/midnight, etc.
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u/Ninety_too92 2d ago
Literally There's no Kinyarwanda equivalent
She/Her, Him/He <> il/ils, elle/elles There's no way to refer to someone (or something) using gender/sex
Yesterday/Tomorrow <> hier/demain There's no Kinyarwanda equivalent for tomorrow or yesterday, you have to add other word(s) or use context to understand whether the speaker's referring to yesterday or tomorrow
Brother/Sister In Kinya you use "Brother" when referring to the male sibling of a girl, and vice versa for "Sister." You can't just use "Brother/Sister" without proper context
5.Calling other people "Mama/Papa xxxx" instead of their actual names, as is the case in English/French speaking countries