LESSON 84

Past of Passives

Vocabulary

kuremera (reye) - to be heavy	kuremerwa (rewe) - to be heavy laden,loaded down
guca (ciye) - to tear (tr.) as paper, cloth)	gucika (tse) - to tear (int.), break (as rope)
gutora (ye) - to choose, elect, pick up, find	gutoranya (nije) - to choose (out of many)
kugaya (ye) - to despise, scorn	intoboro - hole (as in cloth, paper)
umwubatsi - builder

167. Most passives form their past just like the past of the active verb, except that the w is retained.

gukunda - yakunze	kuboha - yaboshye
gukundwa - yakunzwe	kubohwa - yaboshywe

168. However, there are some verbs which do not follow this rule: 1) Verbs ending in -ma and forming the past in -mye, in the passive have no y. kuvoma - yavomye, kuvomwa - yavomwe

2) Verbs with passive ending in -rwa. gutwarwa - yatwawe, kuremerwa - yaremerewe

Note: kuremera is used like any stative verb: biraremereye - they are heavy; biraremerewe - they are heavily laden.

If the active past ends in -ze, the passive past ends in -zwe. kugira - yagize, kugirwa - yagizwe

3) The verb kugaya becomes in the passive, kugawa, with the past yagawe.

4) Verbs whose regular past is -nnye change to -nywe in the past passive. yamennye - yamenywe

5) Verbs in -ba make the past passive -bwe. guhemba - yahembwe, kureba - cyarebwe

Exercises:

I. Translate into English:

: 1. Ibuye (insert “which”) ryagawe n’abubatsi ni Yesu. 2. Twatowe n’Imana kugira ngo tube abana bayo. 3. Imyenda y’umugore yagawe n’abandi kuko yacitse. 4. Umuhungu mubi agawa n’abantu kuko agira nabi iminsi yose. 5. Intama eshatu zishwe n’inyamaswa. 6. Amasahane yogejwe neza n’abakobwa, ariko abiri yamenywe n’injangwe. 7. Tugende gutabara umukozi kuko aremerewe cyane. 8. Ibitabo byanjye biri he? Simbizi, byose byashyizwe ku meza mu gitondo. 9. Mama arashaka imyenda ye; iri he? Yameshwe kare, kandi yanitswe. 10. Basaza banjye bombi batumwe guhamagara abantu bo gusakara inzu.

II. Translate into Kinyarwanda:

: 1. The leopard was feared by all the people because it caught two goats. 2. Many francs were offered by the people in the church. 3. The boys were punished by the teacher because they were absent many days. 4. The chair was broken and the boy’s clothes were torn. 5. There are many little holes in the new clothes. 6. The teacher’s house will be torn down because it was built badly. 7. How many francs were the workmen paid? I don’t know. 8. The lamps were lit by the houseboy (umuboyi) because it got dark early. 9. My sister’s (boy speaking) new clothes were stolen yesterday, and she doesn’t have (any) francs to buy more. 10. We know that there are wild animals here because they have been seen by many people.