Places

A few places you might be going:

mji             town
nyumba     house (home)
hospitali    hospital
duka          shop
soko           market
mkahawa  cafe
hoteli         hotel
shule          school
kanisa        church
mskiti        mosque
mlima        mountain
ufukwe      beach

To say you are going TO a place, just add 'ni' to the end of the word.

Ninakwenda mjini
Ankwenda sokoni
Watoto wanakwenda shuleni

As usual, this changes the stress of the word, e.g.  soko   -  sokoni.

'Ni' at the end of a noun also means IN or AT a place.  But Swahili has a special construction used to talk about 'being in a place' which we don't have in English, so if you want to say "I'm at home" you wouldn't say "mimi ni nyumbani", but "nipo nyumbani".  This involves a much longer explanation, so don't worry about it yet. For now, it's enough to remember the question:

Upo wapi?    Where are you?

Nipo....          I am
mjini, dukani, sokoni, nyumbani etc.

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

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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

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.