When to use it
Use it when plans change and you must cancel a hotel or restaurant booking.
The sentence in English — “How do I cancel a reservation?”
In “How do I cancel a reservation?” ‘How’ opens the question and ‘do’ is required.
- How
- adverbquestion word asking about the way or manner
- do
- auxiliary verbdo · tense: present · auxiliary that makes the question
- I
- pronounpersonal pronoun, always written with a capital letter
- cancel
- verbcancel · form: base form (infinitive without "to") · main verb after "do I"
- a
- determinerindefinite article
- reservation
- nounnoun; in British English also "booking"
The sentence in Swahili — “Ninawezaje kughairi uhifadhi wangu?”
In “Ninawezaje kughairi uhifadhi wangu?” ‘how’ is the suffix ‘-je’ on ‘ninaweza’ (I can). ‘kughairi’ (to cancel) is the infinitive, and ‘wangu’ (my) follows the noun.
- Ninawezaje
- auxiliary verbweza · person: 1st singular · tense: present (-na-) · ninaweza 'I can' + -je 'how'
- kughairi
- verbghairi · form: infinitive (ku-) · ku- + ghairi 'to cancel'
- uhifadhi
- noun'reservation, booking'
- wangu
- pronoun'my', after the noun
English × Swahili — What changes from one language to the other
English has the word ‘How’ first; Swahili attaches ‘-je’ to the verb, and has no articles.
Example conversation
— Ninawezaje kughairi uhifadhi wangu?
— How do I cancel a reservation?
— Unaweza kughairi bure kwenye programu hadi saa kumi na mbili.
— You can cancel it free in the app until six.