When to use it
Use it when someone invites you for sushi and it would be your first time.
The sentence in English: “I've never eaten Japanese food.”
In “I've never eaten Japanese food.” the present perfect (‘have’ + ‘eaten’) marks a life experience.
- I
- pronounpersonal pronoun, always written with a capital letter
- 've
- auxiliary verbhave · tense: present · person: first · number: singular · short form of "have"; with "eaten" it talks about life experience up to now
- never
- adverbadverb of frequency
- eaten
- verbeat · form: past participle · irregular verb: eat, ate, eaten
- Japanese
- adjectiveadjective of nationality, always capitalised in English
- food
- nounnoun
The sentence in Swahili: “Sijawahi kula chakula cha Kijapani.”
In “Sijawahi kula chakula cha Kijapani.” the not-yet experience lives in ‘Sijawahi’: ‘si-’ (I, negative), ‘-ja-’ (yet) and ‘wahi’ (ever). ‘kula’ (to eat) is the infinitive, and ‘cha Kijapani’ (of Japanese) follows ‘chakula’ (food).
- Sijawahi
- verbwahi · person: 1st singular · tense: negative -ja- (not yet) · si- (I not) + -ja- (yet) + wahi 'ever': never so far
- kula
- verbla · form: infinitive (ku-) · ku- + la 'to eat'; one-syllable verbs keep ku-
- chakula
- noun'food', KI-VI class
- cha
- preposition'of', agreeing with chakula
- Kijapani
- proper noun'Japanese', capitalised
What changes from one language to the other: English × Swahili
English changes the verb; Swahili uses the marker ‘-ja-’. The nationality word comes before the noun in English and after it in Swahili.
Example conversation
— Sijawahi kula chakula cha Kijapani.
— I've never eaten Japanese food.
— Basi twende wikendi hii!
— Then let's go this weekend!