Negative sentences

If you've read through the last few posts and practised making questions and sentences, you should be able to ask a question like

Unapenda chai?     (Do you like tea?)

And reply

Ndiyo, ninapenda chai.    (Yes, I like tea.)

Everyone likes tea, so that's fine. But sometimes you need to be able to say that you don't like something - cockroaches, for example.

Sipendi mende.      I don't like cockroaches.

In the present tense, a negative sentence has no tense marker.  The present tense NA that you need in a positive verb disappears.

The person markers are also different from the positive person markers (ni, u, a, tu, m, wa).  You should recognise them from the 'jambo' greetings:

Si          I don't
Hu        You don't
Ha        He/She doesn't
Hatu     We don't
Ham     You (plural) don't
Hawa    They don't

All of them apart from 'si' add 'h' or 'ha' to the positive person marker.

The last thing to remember about negative verbs is that the 'a' at the end of the verb changes to 'i'.
Penda becomes pendi, sema becomes semi etc.  So you should have:

                                          Negative person marker + verb ending in 'i'

If you want to say that you don't like doing something, the negative verb is followed by an infinitive verb.  Infinitives begin with 'ku', e.g. kusoma, kupenda, kula.

Hatupendi buibui.                   We don't like spiders.
Hawajui kusema Kiswahili.    They don't know how to speak Swahili.
Siwezi kuona mlima.                I can't see the mountain.
Hutaki kula pweza?                 Don't you want to eat some octopus?
Hampiki chapati.                     You're not cooking chapatis (if you're speaking to several people)
Hafanyi kazi hospitalini.          She / He doesn't work at the hospital.

Exceptions

There are two groups of verbs that behave slightly differently.

1)  Foreign verbs

If a verb doesn't end in 'a', then it was originally a foreign word (usually Arabic).  Examples of these include ishi (live) and fahamu (understand).  These words do not change their final letter in the negative.

Ninafahamu  -   Sifahamu
Unaishi         -    Huishi

2)  Short verbs

A small group of Swahili verbs are known as 'short verbs', because they are too short to stand alone without their infinitive 'ku'.  There aren't very many of these verbs, but most of them are very common.  They include:

kula       - to eat
kunywa - to drink
kuja       - to come
kwenda  - to go

A normal verb like kupenda (to like) drops its infinitive 'ku' in a normal sentence.  These short verbs retain the 'ku'; you say "ninakula" (I eat), not "ninala".

In a negative sentence, however, short verbs lose the 'ku' prefix.

So KULA becomes LA.

Then, because the 'a' changes to 'i' in a negative verb, LA becomes LI.  All you're left with is the negative prefix plus 'li':

Sili nyama       I don't eat meat
Huli ndizi        You don't eat bananas
Hali samaki     He / She doesn't eat fish

These require a bit more practice, since 'sili' no longer looks much like 'kula'.

Unakwenda sokoni?    Siendi sokoni, ninakwenda nyumbani.
Are you going to the market?     I'm not going to the market, I'm going home.

Mnakunywa kahawa?   Hatunywi kahawa, tunakunywa chai.
Are you drinking coffee?  We're not drinking coffee, we're drinking tea.

Wanakuja mjini?  Hawaji mjini, wanafanya kazi leo.
Are they coming to town?   They're not coming to town, they're working today.

Asking questions

Question words usually come at the end of a sentence in Swahili (with the exception of 'kwa nini', why, which is always at the beginning.)

1)  NINI?   (what)

Unafanya nini?       What are you doing?
Ninafanya kazi.      I am working.

2)  NANI?  (who)

Jina lako ni nani?    What is your name?  (literally 'who is your name'?)
Jina langu ni Amina.   My name is Amina.

3)  WAPI?   (where)

Unatoka wapi?    Where do you come from?
Ninatoka Uganda.   I come from Uganda.

4) VIPI?  (how)

Vipi hali?     How are you (literally 'how is your state'?)
Nzuri sana.   Very well.

5)  GANI?  (what kind of)

Unafanya kazi gani?     What (kind of work) do you do?
Mimi ni mwalimu.         I'm a teacher.

6) KWA NINI?  (why)

Kwa nini unasoma Kiswahili?    Why are you learning Swahili?
Kwa sababu ninataka kuishi Tanzania.      Because I want to live in Tanzania.

7)  -NGAPI?  (how much, how many)

Ni shillingi ngapi?     How much is it?  (literally 'how many shillings is it?')
Shillingi elfu tano.     5000 shillings.

Ngapi is the only question word which changes form to agree with the class of the noun it describes. So you would ask 'watoto wangapi?' (how many children) or 'miaka mingapi?' (how many years). Don't worry about this for now, and just use 'ngapi' until you learn the correct form with each noun class.

8)  .......JE?    (how)

Unlike the other question words, 'je' is used as an affix of a verb, for example:

Unasemaje?    How do you say it?
(people often say this if they didn't hear you, in the sense of 'what did you say?)

Unajuaje?     How do you know?

Because the stress is (almost) always on the penultimate syllable of a word, this means that unajua becomes unajuaje, with the stress on the 'a' rather than the 'u'.

M-WA class

The M-WA class is the noun class for people, including the word for 'people':

mtu  -  watu   (person - people)

There are only two nouns in this class that are not people:

mnyama - wanyama  (animal)
mdudu   - wadudu     (insect)

A few M-WA nouns:

mtoto - watoto   (child)
mwanamke  - wanawake  (woman)
mwanamume - wanaume  (man)
msichana  - wasichana  (girl)
mvulana  -  wavulana  (boy)
mwana  - wana  (son/daughter)
mzee  -  wazee  (old man)
mzungu - wazungu (white person)

mwalimu  - walimu  (teacher)
mwanafunzi  - wanafunzi  (student)
mhandisi  - wahandisi  (engineer)
mkulima  - wakulima  (farmer)
mpishi  - wapishi  (cook)

Mwafrika  - Waafrika  (African)
Mtanzania - Watanzania  (Tanzanian)
Mwingereza - Waingereza  (English person)
Mkenya - Wakenya  (Kenyan)
Mganda - Waganda  (Ugandan)
Mfaransa  - Wafaransa  (French person)
Mjerumani - Wajerumani  (German)
Mholanzi  - Waholanzi  (Dutch person)
Marekani  - Wamerekani  (American)

And most other nationalities - you get the idea. The only unexpected one is
Mreno  - Wareno  (Portuguese person)

The reason it's called the M-WA class should be fairly obvious by now.  The same rule applies to adjectives describing the nouns.  The word nzuri is actually -zuri in its most basic form.  So instead of nzuri, words in this class are mzuri in the singular and wazuri in the plural.

Mwalimu mzuri (a good teacher)
Wakenya wazuri (beautiful Kenyans - or good Kenyans, depending on the context).

In the M-WA class the verb prefixes are a- (third person singular, i.e. he/she), and wa- (third person plural, i.e. they).  We've learnt these already, because we were using verbs to talk about people.

Mtoto anakwenda shuleni  (The child is going to school)
Waholanzi wanapenda chizi  (Dutch people like cheese)

A few useful M-WA class words:

huyu - yule        this - that                  Huyu ni mtoto wangu    This is my child
hawa  - wale      these - those             Hawa ni watoto wangu    These are my children
wengi                 many                        Watu wengi sana!     A lot of people
mwengine          other, another           Mtoto mwengine      Another child
wengine             other (plural)            Wazungu wengine   Other white people
wote                   all                             Wanafunzi wote wanasoma    All the students are reading

The most important letter for the M-WA class is W.  W is the prefix for the A of association and for possessives, for example:

mtoto wa jirani                 the neighbour's child
mwalimu wa Kiswahili     the Swahili teacher

mwalimu wake      his/her teacher
wadudu wangu      my insects

****

NB.  There are many nouns for humans and animals that are not in the M-WA class.  They take the plural of whichever noun class they are in, e.g. the plural of mbwa (dog) is mbwa.  BUT they follow M-WA class agreements for other things:

Mbwa wa jirani anakuja       The neighbour's dog is coming
Mbwa mkali                          A fierce dog
Mbwa wakali                        Fierce dogs

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.  

Basic Verbs (positive sentences, present tense)

Swahili verbs do a lot of work in a sentence.  You can often use one word in Swahili when you'd need four or five in English:

Anawasomesha    -   She is teaching them

A verb like that may look long and complicated, but once you understand how the grammar works it  becomes much less daunting.

A + NA + WA + SOMESHA
She + present tense + them (object) + is teaching

or

Ninakupenda  -  I like/love you

NI + NA + KU + PENDA
I + present tense + you (object) + like/love

You do NOT need to use a separate personal pronoun, unlike in English.  "Ninakupenda" means "I love you", and using a personal pronoun before the verb ("mimi ninakupenda") would only be used if you really want to emphasise the "I" - 'It is I who love you'.

A verb always begins with a person prefix:

Ni        I
U         You
A         He / She
Tu       We
M        You (plural)
Wa       They

It is followed by the tense marker, which is na for the present tense.  In Swahili there is no difference between "I go" and "I am going" - both would be ninakwenda.

Ninasema  (ni+na+sema)  -  I say, speak
Unatoka   (u+na+toka)  -  You come from
Anasoma  (a+na+soma) - He reads/learns, or She reads/learns
Tunakula  (tu+na+kula) -  We eat
Mnakuja   (m+na+kuja)  - You are coming
Wanaondoka (wa+na+ondoka)  -  They are leaving

Here are a few useful verbs:

kwenda*   -  go
kuja*        -  come
kula*         - eat
kunywa*   - drink
soma         - learn, read
fanya         - do, make
fanya kazi - work (literally 'do work')
penda        - like, love
taka           - want
jua             - know
fahamu     - understand
elewa       - understand
omba       - beg (used as a polite way of asking for something, rather than 'I want...')
nunua      - buy
sema        - say, speak
toka         - come from
pumzika   - relax, have a rest

* The four verbs with a star next to them behave in a slightly different way, because they are short verbs.  See the next post on negative sentences in the present tense.

To be

The verb "to be" in Swahili is very simple, since it isn't actually a verb at all (in grammatical terms, it's called a copula).  The only word you need is ni:

Mimi ni daktari          I am a doctor
Yeye ni Mtanzania     He/She is Tanzanian
Wao ni wanafunzi      They are students

The negative form (am not, is not) is equally simple: si.

Wewe si mwalimu     You are not a teacher
Sisi si Waingereza      We are not English
Mimi si pweza            I am not an octopus

Because these don't change form, you need to use personal pronouns (I, you, he, she etc.) to specify who or what you're talking about.  These are:

Mimi      I
Wewe    You
Yeye      He / She
Sisi        We
Nyinyi   You (plural)  [sometimes spelt 'ninyi']
Wao       They   [sounds like 'wow!']

Asking questions is easier than in English, because you don't even have to change the word order.

Wewe ni mwalimu?    Ndiyo, mimi ni mwalimu.
Are you a teacher?   Yes, I'm a teacher.

Nyinyi ni Wakenya?  Hapana, sisi si Wakenya. Sisi ni Wazanzibari.
Are you Kenyan?    No, we're not Kenyan.  We're Zanzibari.

Often the word je is used to alert the listener to the fact that a question is coming, but the meaning remains the same:

Je, yeye ni fundi*?          Is he a fundi?
Je, nyinyi ni wapishi?    Are you cooks?

* It's hard to translate the word 'fundi' into English.  A fundi could be a mechanic, a bicycle repairman, an electrician, a carpenter, a tailor, a plumber, or anyone with some kind of useful manual skill - usually either a craftsman or someone who can fix things.

Greetings: Jambo

Jambo!

If you only know one word in Swahili, this is probably it.

Literally, 'jambo' means 'matter' or 'affair'.  Used alone, it is a greeting for foreigners who probably only know one word in Swahili. If you want to speak Kiswahili sanifu, or standard Swahili, you need to learn a few prefixes.  To greet someone, you should ask:

Hujambo?  

Hu- is a negative marker, so 'hujambo' means: "you have no matter?", or "there's nothing the matter with you?"

The correct reply is:

Sijambo.

Si- is the negative marker for the first person (I), so it means "I have no matter", or "there's nothing the matter with me."

The negative marker requires a different prefix for each person:

Si + jambo     =  sijambo     (I have no 'jambo')
Hu + jambo   =  hujambo    (You have no 'jambo')
Ha + jambo   =  hajambo    (He/She has no 'jambo')

Hatu + jambo  =  hatujambo  (We have no 'jambo')
Ham + jambo  =  hamjambo  (You [plural] have no 'jambo')
Hawa + jambo =  hawajambo (They have no 'jambo')

(Remember these negative prefixes. They will be useful).

So if you're talking to more than one person, you should greet them with

Hamjambo?

And they will reply

Hatujambo.

You can ask about other people as well.  If someone knows that you have children (or if they don't know you at all, but think that you should have children), they might ask

Watoto hawajambo?   (Are the children ok?  or 'The children have no 'jambo'?')

And you would reply

Hawajambo.        

***

The plural of 'jambo' is 'mambo'.  Mambo is also used as a greeting, particularly in a less formal situation and if you're one of the cool young guys.

If someone greets you with "mambo?" or "mambo vipi?"  you can reply with something like:

poa         cool
safi         clean

(If you want to be clever, try "poa kichizi kama ndizi" - crazy cool like a banana.)

Introducing Swahili Grammar

Learning Swahili can be difficult to begin with, because the grammar is very different from that of European languages. Once you’re used to the way it works, the good news is that there are very few exceptions to the rules – unlike English.

Here are a few basic points about how Swahili works:

1) There are no articles (a/an, the).  Mtoto can therefore mean child, a child, or the child.

2) One of the most common words you'll see is the "A of association" (-a).  Depending on the class of the noun it follows, it can be ya, wa, la, cha, vya, or za, and its function is to link the words before and after it. Usually it can be translated as "of".  E.g.

Mtoto wa jirani    -  the child of the neighbour (the neighbour's child)
Duka la vitabu     -  shop of books (bookshop)
Habari za leo       -  the news of today (today's news)

NB. The word 'na' means 'and', and is not an A of association.

3) Swahili nouns fall into one of six noun classes.  Each class has its own rules, so nouns behave differently depending on the rules of the noun class they belong to.

One example of this is plurals: the plural of mtoto (child) is watoto, because it belongs to the M-WA class.  The plural of mti (tree) is miti, because it belongs to the M-MI class. The plural of kitabu (book) is vitabu, because it belongs to the KI-VI class. When you begin learning Swahili this can be very frustrating, because you can’t predict what the plural of a noun will be until you have become familiar with each noun class. The same goes for words that describe a noun, including 'this' and 'that', and most adjectives.

4) Verbs do a lot of work in Swahili. You do not have to use a personal pronoun (I, you, he, she etc.) because it is contained in the verb.  If there is an object pronoun in the sentence (e.g. I saw her) this also becomes part of the verb.  For example:

ninakupenda  =  I like/love you

NI  +  NA                                      + KU                    +  PENDA

‘I’   +   present tense marker  + you (object)  +  like/love (verb stem)

Because of this structure, you need to have some idea of how these affixes work before you can use a dictionary.  In this case, to find the meaning of the verb you would look up “penda”.

5) Verbs can also have several forms which alter their meaning. The most common variation changes the verb from active to passive: “penda” is the basic form of the verb ‘like/love’, while “pendwa” means ‘to be liked/loved’.  Another carries the meaning of 'causing someone to do something': the verb "soma" means to read or learn, and "somesha" means to cause someone to learn, i.e. to teach. Once you know the rules, you can often guess the meaning of new verbs.