Adjectives

Adjectives - that tells more about the noun - are created by adding the prefix of a noun to a particular stem. For example to say "the beautiful woman" it would be "mosadi e motle" [mo+sadi e mo+tle].

Here are concords and prefixes for each class as used with adjectives: 

Class Concord Prefix
1 e mo-
1a ba ba-
2 e mo-
2a ba ba-
3 o mo-
4 e me-
5 le le-
6 a ma-
7 se se-
8 tse -
9 e -
10 tse -
14 bo bo-
15 ho ho-

Some useful adjective stems:

English Stem
Class 1-7, 14-15

Adjective
Class 8, 9, 10

bad -be mpe
beautiful -tle ntle
big -holo kgolo
black -tsho ntsho
blue -tala tala
brown (dark) -sootho sootho
brown (light) -kgunong kgunong
dark -tsho ntsho
different -sele disele/esele/disele
female -tshehadi tshehadi
good -tle ntle
green -tala tala
grey -putswa putswa
huge -tonana ditonana/tonana/ditonana
little -nyane nyane
long -lelele telele
male -tona tona
many -ngata ngata
new -tjha ntjha
pink -pinki pinki
red -fubedu kgubedu
round -tjhitja tjhitja
short -kgutshwanyane kgutshwanyane
small -nyane nyane
tall -lelele telele
thick -tenya tenya
thin -sesane tshesane
white -sweu tshweu
yellow -sehla tshehla

Note that traditionally the same word is used for blue and green.
The loanword "bolou" is sometimes used for "blue".

Examples:
monna e molelele (the tall man)
sefate se setala (the green tree)
ntja e ntsho (the black dog)
ditelevishene tse ntjha (the new television)


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