When to use it
Use it in a pharmacy to check whether a medicine is sold over the counter.
The sentence in English — “Can I buy medicine without a prescription?”
In “Can I buy medicine without a prescription?” ‘Can’ moves before ‘I’, and ‘prescription’ is one word.
- Can
- auxiliary verbcan · tense: present · modal verb of ability or permission; it opens the question
- I
- pronounpersonal pronoun, always written with a capital letter
- buy
- verbbuy · form: base form (infinitive without "to") · main verb after "can"
- medicine
- noununcountable noun here, used in a general sense
- without
- prepositionpreposition
- a
- determinerindefinite article
- prescription
- nounnoun; a doctor's written order for medicine
The sentence in Swahili — “Je, ninaweza kununua dawa bila agizo la daktari?”
In “Je, ninaweza kununua dawa bila agizo la daktari?” ‘Je’ marks the question and the rest keeps statement order. ‘ninaweza’ (I can) carries person and tense, and ‘kununua’ (to buy) is the ku- infinitive.
- Je
- particle'Je' at the start marks a question
- ninaweza
- auxiliary verbweza · person: 1st singular · tense: present (-na-) · ni- + -na- + weza 'I can'
- kununua
- verbnunua · form: infinitive (ku-) · ku- + nunua 'to buy'
- dawa
- noun'medicine'
- bila
- preposition'without'
- agizo
- noun'order'; with la daktari, a prescription
- la
- preposition'of', agreeing with agizo
- daktari
- noun'doctor'
English × Swahili — What changes from one language to the other
English inverts; Swahili adds ‘Je’. English ‘prescription’ is ‘agizo la daktari’ (a doctor's order) in Swahili.
Example conversation
— Je, ninaweza kununua dawa bila agizo la daktari?
— Can I buy medicine without a prescription?
— Hii ndiyo, lakini dawa za antibiotiki zinahitaji agizo.
— This one yes, but antibiotics need a prescription.