{"id":152,"date":"2005-01-10T23:59:07","date_gmt":"2005-01-10T23:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/?p=152"},"modified":"2026-11-12T19:52:36","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T19:52:36","slug":"saying-sorry-the-kenyan-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/2005\/01\/10\/saying-sorry-the-kenyan-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Saying Sorry – The Kenyan Way…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recently I had lost my blog motivation and was beginning to accept that I may never blog again but a friend’s comment<\/a> on what he terms as ‘cross-cultural communication interpretations’ <\/i><\/b> led me to reflect on some of the things that Kenyans say in Kiswahili which when translated to English lose their meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One word that stands out is ‘sorry’ and a while back Kaki touched on this in a comment<\/a> she posted. I have been told by many of my non-Kenyan friends that I apologise too much and I am sure a Western psychologist could analyse me and find some underlying self esteem issues that have led to my ‘over apologetic’ nature but I think the real reason has to do with my heritage. I overuse the word ‘sorry’ because I am Kenyan and before any Western psychologist rushes to classify all Kenyans as lacking self esteem etc, here is my explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kiswahili word for ‘sorry’ is ‘pole’ <\/i><\/b>(pron. po-lay<\/b><\/i>) and this tiny four letter word means a lot more than the English fault based apology. Depending on the context ‘pole’<\/b><\/i> can mean, among other things, ‘I emphathise’, ‘I understand’<\/b><\/i> or ‘ooops…my bad’.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best way to illustrate the versatile nature of the word ‘pole’<\/i><\/b> is by way of example based on fictitious but highly likely conversations between two Kenyans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Example 1 <\/u><\/b> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\nP1: “uuuuwwiiiii…I’ve ngogad <\/i><\/b> (stubbed) my toe on the door”<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

P2: ” Woi! Pole”<\/i><\/b>\n <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Meaning: <\/b> Haki <\/i><\/b> (I swear) I jua <\/i><\/b> (know) your pain! I have ngogad<\/b><\/i> my toe before and it hurts. I feel your pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Example 2 <\/u><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\nP1: “You guy! Did you hear, someone thugged <\/i><\/b> (stole) my wheels?!”<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

P2: “No way! Pole.”<\/i><\/b>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Meaning:<\/b> I have never owned a car, dude, you know I can’t even drive but I know how you and your car were tight…like husband and wife…I hope they shika<\/i><\/b> (catch) the theiving bastard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Example 3 <\/u><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\nP1: ” Did you watch the game last night? My team lost 10-0!”<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

P2: “Heh heh Pole”<\/i><\/b>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Meaning:<\/b> Ha! I did watch the game. Why lie, we thrashed you guys vizuri sana <\/i><\/b> (good and proper) and nita ku enjoy mpaka<\/i><\/b> (I will ridicule you until) next season. But jokes aside, if that were my team I would feel bad too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now take any of the above examples; in this case Example 2 <\/u> <\/b>and this time imagine that P1 is non-Kenyan. The conversation would probably go a bit like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\nP1: “My good man, I would like to bring to your attention that on or about the 31st of December my sole mode of transportation, namely my car, was dishonestly appropriated.”<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

P2: “Eh…sorry.”<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

P1: “Why are you saying sorry? It’s not your fault.”<\/i><\/b>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So there you have it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just noticed that I used the word ‘bastard’ so pole<\/i><\/b> if I have offended anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meaning: This is my blog, I can say whatever I want to say..but I know my aunties read this so I better act like I was raised properly.<\/i><\/b> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I had lost my blog motivation and was beginning to accept that I may never blog again but a friend’s comment on what he terms as ‘cross-cultural communication interpretations’ led me to reflect on some of the things that Kenyans say in Kiswahili which when translated to English lose their meaning. One word that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,42,19,107,8],"tags":[90,46,47],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-africa","category-favourite","category-kenya","category-mjy","category-watu-na-viatu","tag-kenya","tag-kiswahili","tag-language","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2322,"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions\/2322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beginsathome.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}