Tswana: Theme 6 - Transportation and Finding Your Way



Previous greetings and courtesies | asking for help, emergencies | numbers, days, months, seasons | question words, quantities, weather and time | banks, taxis and restaurants | transportation and finding your way | touring and socializing | at the filling station | the human body and ailments | shopping and sport Next


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Place names

In South Africa, two kinds of place names may be distinguished: traditional African place names and English or Afrikaans place names.  Most of the bigger towns and cities have English or Afrikaans names; however, these places are also given names by the Setswana people.  For example, Johannesburg is known as Gautengin Setswana; Cape Town as Kapa; Pretoria as Tshwane, Rustenburg as Tlhabane  and so on.

In Setswana we can use the prefix kwa- in front of a place name to indicate location, e.g. gae (home)  > kwa gae (at home),  kwa Gemistoni (at / to Germiston), kwa Ceasars Palace (at / to Ceasars Palace), kwa Kempton Park (at / to Kempton Park). The suffix –ng  is used with the noun to indicate location, e.g. ntlo (house) > ntlong (at the house

Please feel free to exchange any of the place names in the table above for place names of your choice.