Our lessons are created from an African Point of View. Learn in a way that is culturally specific and immediately relevant. Beta access for Twi, Yoruba, Swahili & Ga are now available. African-American here born in the south, with no knowledge or way to trace ancestry back to Africa.
People tend to say good morning / afternoon / evening and numbers in English in the cities. According to work done by P K Agbedor of CASAS, Mfantse , Twi , Abron , Wassa, Asen, Akwamu, and Kwahu belong to Cluster 1 of the speech forms of Ghana. Clusters are defined by the level of mutual intelligibility. Also known as foes, meaning secondhand clothing. It literally means ‘the dead white man’ as these clothes usually came from Europe and were known to be the old garments of Europeans that they no longer required. Connect your expatriate and international business staff with customised country information at the touch of a button.
Use these phrases at any time in the evening from 6PM onwards. There isn’t just one word that means hello in Twi. Hopefully you’ll leave this page knowing some essential Twi greetings. /L/ is the default tone, which emerges in situations such as reduplicated koko’s williamsburg prefixes. It is always at bottom of the speaker’s pitch range, except in the sequence /HLH/, in which case it is raised in pitch but the final /H/ is still lowered. Thus /HMH/ and /HLH/ are pronounced with distinct but very similar pitches.
The phonetic pitch of the three tones depends on their environment, often being lowered after other tones, producing a steady decline known as tone terracing. Twi has three phonemic tones, high (/H/), mid (/M/), and low (/L/). Initial syllable may only be high or low. Never just say”Maakyøé. / Maahæé. / Maadwoá.”. Also known as trosky, a minibus used for public transportation. Trotro drivers are notorious for their bad driving.
It is a common practice to give money with your right hand while at the same time receiving small purchases into the same hand. The West African handshake is used in Ghana, where the middle finger snaps the middle finger of the person you are shaking. The louder the snap, the better, and it is acceptable to try the snap a second time if you miss it. You can see examples in our language videos. There are numerous advantages to indigenous languages in Ghana.
Continue your conversation by learning how to say ‘how are you? Akan people use phrases that are specific to the time of day when saying hello. Write out vocabulary words in Twi, English, and with symbols on pieces of note cards. Choose the Twi vocabularly that you wish to study and EITHER the corresponding symbols or English words.
Generally, the younger person greets first. Alternatively, the person who enters a room or joins a group will be the one to greet first. Kasem is a Gurunsi language, in the Gur branch. It is spoken in the Upper Eastern Region of Ghana.