When it comes to learning English, I think verbs and tenses create the most problems for a lot of non-English speakers. Let’s face it, English can be so complicated when you have to change words according to their situation.

For example:
We play football > She plays football > I played football > I am playing football > I shall play football

Bad news for non-English speaks and a little good news for English speakers is that Twi verbs also change according to tense. By the time you have finished reading this page you will be able to construct basic sentences in Twi.

The basic Twi sentence is: subject – verb – object

There are six basic tenses in Twi: present, progressive, past, future, future progressive and perfect

PRESENT TENSE

Notice in the following examples that the Twi word “di” doesn’t change unlike the English “eat”.

For example:

I eat rice – Medi εmo

Ama eats rice – Ama di εmo

We eat rice – Yεdi εmo

Notice also that when a pronoun is immediately followed by a verb, the two are put together.

PROGRESSIVE TENSE

If you need to talk about an on-going event you just use re before the verb.

For example:

I am eating rice = Meredi εmo

One little bit that you need to know about spoken Twi is that, when pronouncing a progressive verb you have to stretch the pronoun into the verb so that:

Meredi will sound like Meedi

Yεredi will also sound like Yεεdi

PAST TENSE

The usual way to show that an action is completed is to repeat the vowel or consonant after the verb in the sentence.

For example:

I ate rice – Medii εmo.

Kofi went to home – Kofi kɔɔ fie

My mother bought food - Me maame tɔɔ aduane

FUTURE TENSE

To show that an action will happen in the future the verb in the sentence is preceded with ‘bε’.

For example:

Kofi will bath – Kofi bεgyare

The boy shall come tomorrow – Abirmaa no bεba ɔkyena

The only exception to this rule is when the pronoun is FIRST PERSON SINGULAR. In that case bε become mε.

For example:

I will bath – Mεgyare

I shall come tomorrow – Mεba ɔkyena

IMMEDIATE FUTURE TENSE

In the Twi language, there are actually two types of future tenses. The reall future tense, that we have already dealt with and the immediate future.

In English a future tense will be, say, “I will bath” and an immediate future tense should be “I am about to bath” or something.

To show that an action will happen in the immediate future the verb in the sentence is preceded with ‘rebε’.

For example:

I am about to go – Merebεkɔ

The children are about to sing – Mmɔfra no rebεtɔ dwom

We are about to go town just now – Yεrebεkɔ kurom seesei

PERFECT TENSE

If you need to talk about an event which has already happened, you have to put an ‘a’ in front of the verb to indicate a perfect tense.

For example:

The child has gone to school – Abɔfra no akɔ sukuu

Kofi has eaten the orange – Kofi adi ankaa no

I have swept the sitting room – Mapra asaso hɔ

This has been a simple overview of verbs as they are used in Twi tenses. If you want to learn more then try my full Nkyea Twi Primer course. If you have any questions please use the forum. Thank you.