Zulu Lesson The Weather

This blog has Zulu lessons when I remember words, you can pronounce in English. My apologies to loyal blog readers in Brazil, France, Germany, Netherlands and Korea. I don’t speak your languages. Readers in Ireland have no problem for obvious reasons.

Let’s do the weather today. The weather is izulu, in Zu-lu. Don’t be confused. It’s the same word for both, and you say the first part like zoo and the second like look. Please lower your voice, but put emphasis on syllables when you speak Zulu. Always. Don’t tweet it like a bird.

ENGLISH	ZULU
How’s the weather tomorrow? (brides are always worried)	Linjan’ izulu kusasa?
The weather is bad.	Izulu libi.
There is thunder.	Izulu liya duma.
The weather is frowning (clouds swirling turning black).	Izulu liya buyisa.
It’s raining non-stop.	Izulu umvimbi (the rain is stopping all movement).

 The weather is subjective. To a homeless person rain and snow are bad news. In Canada and Europe, snow is good news because of winter sports like skiing and skating on frozen rivers. Count me out. I cannot forget that there’s a river underneath that snow.

Farmers do not say the weather is bad when it’s raining after a long drought. We don’t know their problems and we don’t care because we zoom in and out of supermarkets, our grocery trolleys full of milk, meat, fruit and veggies.

Event planners plan everything but they cannot plan the weather izulu.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.