German to Rundi: distinguish knowledge, familiarity and know-how
Three German constructions can concern knowing
German distinguishes wissen, kennen and können, but the intended meanings also depend on their complements. Wissen can introduce a fact; kennen can identify familiarity with a person or place; können plus an infinitive can describe an ability. Cox’s Kirundi course presents -zi as a verb covering knowing and knowing how, with kumenya supplying forms that -zi lacks. A translation should therefore not demand a separate Rundi lexical stem for each German dictionary heading.
The short form ndazi is given for I know, but it cannot by itself determine the full intended knowledge. Compare original German ideas such as knowing a route, knowing that a road is closed, and knowing how to reach a village. The first concerns familiarity, the second a proposition and the third practical knowledge. The Rundi clause needs the appropriate content even where the same knowing stem is involved.
Können is not always a claim about a learned skill
An original German statement such as Ich kann schwimmen can describe an acquired ability. Ich kann heute schwimmen can instead explain that today’s circumstances permit swimming, depending on context. The course’s description of -zi as knowing how is relevant to the first reading. It is not evidence that this form should replace every German können, including permission, opportunity or a tentative request.
For a learner explaining that they have never learned to cook, the missing element is know-how. For a guest explaining that they cannot cook now because the kitchen is locked, the problem is access. Using a knowledge expression for both would change the guest’s competence rather than describe the temporary obstacle. Preserve the kind of ability or constraint before choosing the Rundi construction. The German infinitive alone does not tell the translator which reading is intended.
A change of tense can require a change of stem
Cox describes -zi as defective: it has present forms but lacks an ordinary past, future, conditional and infinitive. The course uses kumenya to fill the missing parts. German, by contrast, can inflect a familiar knowing verb or place it in a compound tense without requiring the translator to assume an equivalent target stem remains available. A Rundi translation using a related but visibly different stem is not automatically changing the topic from knowing to another activity.
This distinction matters in a German learning history contrasting what somebody knows now with what they will know after training. The target wording must keep the time contrast and the content of the knowledge while using an available Rundi form. It also matters after a German verb requiring an infinitive: searching only for a hypothetical infinitive of -zi is the wrong expectation. The grammatical gap described in the course explains why the translation may need kumenya even though a present-tense answer elsewhere in the same conversation uses a shorter knowing form.
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