To describe the relationship between objects and subjects in a sentence, we use prepositions such as after, above, below, and next. Lingala too has prepositions. Notice an example of one from our conversation above:
nakoteya bango mateya mosusu na nsima
We saw that this meant I will teach them other lessons next. Notice that na nsima is the phrase used to mean next. Literally that phrase means with with after. The word nsima is used to mean after, back or behind. Often it is used with the word na as in our example above to create a more specific meaning. So:
moto na nsima
Can mean the next person or the person after/behind. For many learning Lingala it’s easier to remember the phrase na nsima as meaning next or after. Whereas:
nsima na moto
Can mean after the person or behind that person. In this case we are using nsima with the na afterwards to help point to the object it is after or behind.
This works the same for many prepositions, such as:
na nse
na likoló
ya liboso
The word nse means down or below. The word likoló means above or up. It also is used to mean heaven (plural makoló). Notice that this word has an accent mark over the final o (ó). This is because we stress that vowel so that it sounds different from a similar word we will learn in a later lesson.
We can see also that the word liboso – we have learned previously – is used slightly differently. We use the word ya before it to create the idea of first or before. This is unique to the word liboso. However, if we wanted to say before him we would use na as with the other prepositions:
liboso na ye
In our vocabulary list we also had the word lokola which is also a preposition. This word means like in sense of how something is like something else. This word is used identically to how we would use that meaning of like in English. Notice a couple of examples:
| ezali lokola yango | it is like it | it is like it |
| nazali lokola Bernard | I am like Bernard | I am like Bernard |