Comparisons are important in all languages, and Lingala has a single word that allows us to do show comparison of something being better or less than something else. This verb is –lek– and in this part of the lesson we’ll examine a few ways it is used.
| Lingala | English (Meaning) | English (Literal) |
|---|---|---|
| bozala na makasi koleka ngai | you (plural) are stronger than me | you (plural) are with strength passing me |
| tozali koleka bango | we are better than them | we are passing them |
| batangaka babuku koleka biso | they are always better at reading books than we are | they are always reading books passing us |
As we can see in those examples, the word –lek– used in the infinitive (koleka) simply means to pass (by), but we can use it for other English words like exceed, surpass, and go beyond.
We can also use it as we would a normal verb in this way:
| Lingala | English (Meaning) | English (Literal) |
|---|---|---|
| naleki ye na mayele | I am more intelligent than him/her | I pass him with intelligence |
| Jacques aleki Armand na nguya | James is stronger than Armand | James he passes Armand with power |
| oleki biso na botondi | you (singular) are more thankful than we are | you (singular) pass us with thankfulness |
Here we see that we use the verb with the object immediately after the verb, and then use na followed by the thing the person is better at.
Now notice what happens if we just use the object and subject without the thing they are better at:
| Lingala | English (Meaning) | English (Literal) |
|---|---|---|
| mama aleki ngai | mum is better than me | mum she passes me |
We simply are saying that the subject or object is better than the other.
What if we want to reverse the meaning and make something smaller or less important?
| Lingala | English (Meaning) | English (Literal) |
|---|---|---|
| moto moko aleki moke, moto mosusu aleki monene | one person is less, another person is greater | person one he/she passes little, person other he/she passes great |
Alternatively we can just use the word te on the end of the sentence to mean the person is not better.
mama aleki tata te
Here mother is not better than father.
We can also use the –lek– verb with numbers:
| Lingala | English (Meaning) | English (Literal) |
|---|---|---|
| bato koleka ntuku mwambe | more than eighty people | people passing eight |
As we can see, –lek– is a very useful word and has a great many uses.