Could you say/repeat it slowly?

[coleman]

A good question was recently asked by a student in the AKT Discord server:

Sometimes when I speak to Julakan speakers they speak too fast so… “Could you repeat slowly” bɛ fɔ di jalankan na? I guess something like “Hakɛto! A fɔ “slowly”?”

For other’s future reference here is my response:

Good question

You can say something like it:

Hakɛto! N m’à faamu. À fɔ kelen-kelen!
“Excuse me! I haven’t understood! Say it slowly [Lit. ‘one-by-one’]”

So basically kelen-kelen can be used to express the idea of “slowly”.

You can also use dɔɔnin-dɔɔnin in the same way to mean “slowly” but depending on the context it can also potentially mean “softly” (as in, “at a lower volume”)