Noun Classes

Noun classes are very frustrating when you begin learning Swahili, partly because the whole concept is so different from anything we have in English, and partly because it takes time to learn the rules of each class.  

You can't tell what class a noun belongs to if you only know the singular of the noun (although sometimes you can guess), but you can always tell what class a noun belongs to as soon as you know the plural as well as the singular.

There are six noun classes:

1. M - WA

2. N

3. M-MI

4. KI-VI

5. JI-MA

6. U

A lot depends on the noun class, including:

a) Plurals.  So the plural of mtoto is watoto (M-WA), while the plural of kitabu (book) is vitabu 

(KI-VI).

b) Adjectives, including most numbers, e.g. mtoto mzuri (a good child) and kitabu kizuri (a good book). Most of these take the same prefixes as the plural, so they're not very difficult to remember.

c) Demonstratives, i.e. 'this' and 'that', and 'these' and 'those'. 

4) Possessives, i.e. my, your, his, her etc.  The first letter of these words changes depending on the noun class.

5) The A of association (ya, za, wa etc.)

6) Quite a few useful words, including 'many', 'other', 'how many?' and 'all'.  Like the possessives, the main part of the word is always the same, but the first letter or two changes according to the noun class.  E.g. Watoto wengi (a lot of children - M-WA), miti mingi (a lot of trees - M-MI), nyumba nyingi (a lot of houses - N).

7) The person prefixes in verbs, for 'it' and 'they'.  E.g. Yeye anakwenda (He goes - M-WA class), but inatosha (it's enough - N class).

Warning: if you try to learn several of these noun classes at a time it becomes very confusing. Make sure you're confident with the classes you know before you move on to the next one. And if you don't know what class a noun is and aren't sure that you're getting the grammar right - stop worrying, because it doesn't really matter.  Communication is much more important than accuracy, so if you say "watoto nyingi" instead of "wengi" people will understand perfectly well and they won't mind.