PSLE Setswana cheat sheet

Dumela addresses one person of equal or younger age; Dumelang addresses two or more people, or one elder out of respect.

O kae? asks how one person is; Le kae? is the plural or respectful form; the standard reply to both is Ke teng.

Tsamaya sentle is said to the person who is leaving; Sala sentle is said by the one leaving to those who stay.

Ke a go leboga thanks one person; Ke a lo leboga thanks several people or one elder; the reply is Ga go na bothata.

Question words signal the type of answer required: mang (who), eng (what), kae (where), leng (when), jang (how), goreng (why).

Respect register replaces o with lo and wena with lona when a learner speaks to an elder or to an official.

Oral task instructions are fixed: Reetsa (listen), Bua (speak), Bolela (say or tell), Tlhalosa (explain), Botsa (ask).

Identifying a speaker's purpose means deciding whether the speech informs (go itsise), asks (go botsa), instructs (go laela) or persuades (go kgotlha).

Kgang is the passage or story; motswedi wa kgang is its main idea, usually stated in a first or last sentence of a paragraph.

Answers to comprehension questions must be traceable to a word, phrase or sentence in the passage; unsupported personal opinion earns no marks.

Question words map to answer types: mang = person, eng = thing, kae = place, leng = time, ka goreng = reason, jang = manner.

Go bapisa means finding similarities between two items in a text; go farologanya means finding their differences.

Sequence markers to follow: pele (first), morago ga moo (after that), kwa bofelong (finally), ka nako eo (at that time).

Go ntsha dikakanyo is inference: the conclusion is not printed in the passage but is supported by evidence inside it.

Maitlhomo a mokwadi is the writer's purpose, commonly go ruta (teach), go kgotlha (persuade) or go gakologelwa (entertain).

A pronoun such as ene or bone refers back to the nearest matching noun, so the noun class of the earlier noun decides the referent.

A title or heading (tshoboko) predicts the content and can be used to check whether a chosen main idea fits the whole text.

Class 1 nouns take mo- and concord o; class 2 takes ba- and concord ba: mosimane o tsamaya, basimane ba tsamaya.

Class 7 nouns take se- and concord se; class 8 takes di- and concord di: sekolo se butsega, dikolo di butsega.

Class 9 nouns take n- or m- and concord e; class 10 takes di- and concord di: kgomo e fula, dikgomo di fula.

Class 5 nouns take le- and concord le; class 6 takes ma- and concord a: leina le, maina a.

The infinitive is go plus the verb stem: go bona (to see), go kwala (to write), go tsamaya (to walk).

Past tense = ne + subject concord + verb: ke ne ke bona (I saw); future = tla + verb: ke tla bona (I will see).

Present negative = ga + subject concord + verb + -e: ga ke bone (I do not see), ga a tsamaye (he does not walk).

Adjectives carry the concord of their noun: mosimane yo montle, basimane ba ba ntle; the same rule governs possessives wa, ba, ya, la, sa, tsa.

Perfect or completed action commonly ends in -ile: bona becomes bonile, tsamaya becomes tsamaile, kwala becomes kwadile.

Maele are proverbs: fixed sentences carrying community wisdom, quoted in speech, in kgotla argument and in written composition.

Dikapuo are idioms: fixed expressions whose meaning cannot be worked out from the literal words, so each is learnt as a whole.

Motho ke motho ka batho teaches that a person becomes fully human through other people; it supports essays on unity and cooperation.

Ngwana yo o sa lleng o tla swela mo masapelong warns that a child who never complains is overlooked and suffers.

Mma o tshwara thipa ka fa bogaleng means a mother endures any hardship, even pain, for the sake of her children.

Pelo e ntle (good heart) praises a kind and generous person; its opposite, pelo e bosula, describes cruelty.

Verb-derived vocabulary grows by affixation: -ile marks completed action, -a marks the plain stem, and go- nominalises a verb into an infinitive.

Antonym pairs to keep ready: bosigo (night) against motshegare (daytime), phakela (morning) against maitseboa (evening).

A narrative composition has three parts: tshimologo sets the scene and characters, mmele develops the events, bokhutlo closes the story.

A friendly letter carries the writer's address at the top right, the date below it, a greeting such as Dumela Neo, body paragraphs, Wa gago, and a signature.

A formal letter carries the receiver's address, the date, a salutation such as Morena or Mma, a subject line, the body, and a closing such as Wa lona.

Punctuation names: khutlo (full stop), phegelwana (comma), botsheka (question mark), kgakalo (exclamation mark), khutlwana (semicolon).

Serapa is a paragraph; each serapa holds one main idea, opens with a topic sentence and is separated from the next by a line break or indent.

Direct speech is introduced with a colon and marked with quotation marks or a dash, with the speaker named before or after the words.

Composition planning order: jot ideas, arrange them in time order, write, then check concords, tense consistency and punctuation.

Frequent mark-losing errors are concord mismatch between subject and verb, switching tense mid-paragraph, and literal translation from English.

Mainane are folktales told for entertainment and moral teaching; the teller calls Mainane! and the audience answers Ka re mainane!

Recurring folktale characters include Phokoje the trickster jackal, Tau the lion, and Pitse the hyena.

Bogwera is the boys' initiation school and Bojale the girls'; both transmit history, values and adult responsibilities.

Bogadi is bride-wealth: the groom's family gives cattle or goods to the bride's family, formally linking the two families.

Kgotla is the traditional assembly place and court, presided over by the kgosi, where disputes are heard and community matters discussed.

Moropa is the drum used at dances and ceremonies; segaba is a one-stringed bowed instrument that accompanies singing and storytelling.

Setapa, tsutsube and phathisi are well-known Setswana traditional dances performed at celebrations and competitions.

Letsema is communal work, where neighbours labour together in ploughing or harvesting, and the host provides food and drink.

Mophato is an age regiment, a group of people initiated together who keep lifelong ties and duties within the community.