  We suggest and discuss in detail a multi-quark three flavor Lagrangian of the
Nambu -- Jona-Lasinio type, which includes a set of effective interactions
proportional to the current quark masses. It is shown that within the dynamical
chiral symmetry breaking regime, the masses of the pseudo Goldstone bosons and
their chiral partners, members of the low lying scalar nonet, are in perfect
agreement with current phenomenological expectations. The role of the new
interactions is analyzed.
