Language/Lingala/Grammar/The-Imperative-Mood

The Imperative Mood – Learn the Lingala Language

The affirmative form of the imperative

Probably the easiest of all the Lingala verb conjugations is the imperative, or command form, although the construction of the positive and negative versions differ slightly.

To create the positive imperative form of any verb, simply drop the ‘ko-’ at the beginning. That’s it.

So koloba (to speak) is ko-loba – loba! (LOH-bah) – as in the title of this book.And the positive imperative form of koyeba (to know) is ko-yeba – yeba! (YEH-bah) – know!

The negative form of the imperative

The negative form of the imperative mood is slightly different, however. And, if it’s possible, it’s even easier to construct. The negative form simply uses the entire infinitive followed by te.

So ‘Don’t speak!’ is koloba + te – koloba te!

And ‘Don’t know!' is koyeba te – koyeba te!

Repeat after me

Some Kinois have a habit of repeating things that are said to them to the person that’s just said it. This happens with everyone and isn’t restricted to strangers or foreigners. It’s actually a nice gesture that shows the person has been listening to you, but it can be confusing when you first start speaking Lingala. Since the subject pronouns change between what you’ve just said and what the person is repeating, what they say back to you will change, as well. For example, if you say, ‘Nalingi ndunda’ – ‘I like vegetables’ – when it’s repeated back to you, you’ll hear, ‘Olingi ndunda’ – ‘You like vegetables’ – which is, of course, perfectly correct. But for beginners, it’s easy to think that you’ve made a mistake and that the person is gently correcting you. With practice and a bit of confidence you’ll soon be able to tell the difference. If the person has heard you correctly and you want to confirm that, you say ‘Ya solo’ (yah SOH-loh), which means ‘That’s correct.’

Source

https://lobalingala.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/23042014-loba-lingala.pdf

Other Lessons

• Time adverbs
• Present Tense
• Simple present tense
• Verb to be
• Irregular verbs – kolia – to eat
• Adjectives
• Using infinitive verb forms
• The present tense To be
• Plural forms
• Verb To Have and To Be
• Questions
• Create simple sentences in the negative
• Gender
• Irregular verbs – kokende – to go
• Irregular verbs – koya – to come