I am wondering how “It’s okay” in Bambara is written. I can tell whether it is with ten or tɛ and the end…
a ka ɲi ten or a ka ɲi tɛ ?
Context: you want to tell someone who is trying to sell you something or doing a task for you and you want to tell them that “it’s okay” or “good enough”.
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I ni ce, Malik!
The word you are looking for is ten and not tɛ (though when spoken it can be hard to hear the difference):
À ka ɲi ten
‘It is good like that’
< (as in, “That’s good” or “It’s ok like that” in the context you describe)
The word ten (and its counterpart tan) is a “manner deictic”, which is just a fancy word to describe what in English would be expressed with “like this” and “like that”. You can find it in the dictionary with an example around here (you might need to scroll up or down).
I have updated the dictionary’s definition to specify what a “manner deictic” is
PS - Thank you for sharing the proper context, etc.
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