Posts Tagged ‘Kinyarwanda’
“I have no idea what this means, but isn’t my pronunciation fabulous?”
Anyone who’s learned a foreign language knows that there are phases you go through. There’s that “I only know one verb in the past tense” phase, where every time your teacher asks you on Monday what you did this weekend, you say, “I slept.” There’s the “I understand your question but cannot form an answer” [...]
On returning, or, “What does your language sound like?”
I had a conversation in Sierra Leone with someone who speaks an enviable number of languages. I grew up in West Virginia, where it’s not uncommon for high school French teachers not to have been to France, ever (one of mine had, and one, as I recall, hadn’t). People who can move thoughtlessly between three [...]
Anybody know where I can get some more of this?
Someone just shared with me this link “Ururabo,” an old Kinyarwanda song, by a band known as Rossisendi & His Group. The link has details about the record company and the album number but nothing about the band. Anyone know anything about this band, or old bands like it? I’m fascinated by this music. It’s [...]
Rwanda-isms I
I can’t believe it hasn’t occurred to me to do this sooner. Like every place in which English is not the mother language, the English here can sometimes be funny. Certainly not as funny as my Kinyarwanda–I’m running around inflecting words wrong or simply confusing vocabulary, trying to negotiate the price of a moto ride [...]
Things you don’t want to overhear
I am too infrequently nursing a little burn I got hopping off a moto last week–it was my own fault, lacking as I do both balance and grace and forgetting momentarily to compensate with attention and will power. I’ve been careful since then, but lately I find myself taking up drivers not nearly so careful [...]
Maybe Kinyarwanda is actually the universal language
I was sitting in the bus station in Butare and four Asian men walked in. A tall guy in an Indian-style tunic went to the counter and said, “Mwiriwe, amakuru?” Good afternoon, how are you? He proceeded to try to get bus tickets in Kinyarwanda, but the prices tripped him up. For the fun of [...]
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [