Swahili grammar

Every grammar guide of Lingora’s Swahili A1 course, with examples you can listen to.

01Noun Classes: The IdeaSwahili sorts every noun into a group called a class. English marks almost nothing on its nouns, and German and Spanish mark two or three genders;…
02Class 1: People (m-)Class 1 is the class of the single human being. Its nouns begin with m- before a consonant and mw- before a vowel, and nearly every word for a person…
03Class 2: People in the Plural (wa-)Class 2 is the plural of class 1: people in groups. Its prefix is wa-, and unusually for Swahili the prefix on the noun and the prefix on the verb are…
04Class 3: Trees and Growing Things (m-)Class 3 holds trees and plants, natural forces, and a long list of everyday objects. Its nouns begin with m- before a consonant and mw- before a vowel,…
05Class 4: The Plural of Class 3 (mi-)Class 4 is the plural of class 3, and it is one of the easiest classes to spot: the noun begins with mi-, and so does every adjective that describes it.
06Class 5: Fruit, Pairs and Loanwords (ji-)Class 5 is the class that hides. Most of its nouns carry no prefix at all, so nothing in the word itself announces the class and only the words around it…
07Class 6: The Plural of Class 5 (ma-)Class 6 marks its nouns with ma-. It is the plural of class 5, and it also holds a group of nouns that have no singular at all: liquids and masses.
08Class 7: Things and Tools (ki-)Class 7 is the most obliging class in the language: the noun begins with ki-, and so does everything that agrees with it. Before a vowel the prefix…
09Class 8: The Plural of Class 7 (vi-)Class 8 is class 7 in the plural: tools, objects, languages and small things. Its prefix is vi-, becoming vy- before a vowel, and it repeats that prefix…
10Class 9: The Class With No Prefix (n-)Swahili sorts every noun into a group called a class, and the class decides the shape of the words around it: the verb, the word for my, the word for…
11Class 10: The Invisible Plural (n-)Class 10 is class 9 in the plural, and it is the reason Swahili nouns so often look identical whether you mean one or many. The noun does not change at…
12Animate Nouns Take Class 1 AgreementSwahili sorts its nouns into classes, and the class decides the shape of almost every word that agrees with the noun. Class 9 is the class with no…
13Class 11: Abstract Ideas and Long Thin Things (u-)Class 11 marks its nouns with u-. It holds two groups that look unrelated but share a class: qualities and states on one side, long thin objects on the…
14Class 15: Infinitives Used as Nouns (ku-)Swahili puts its infinitives in a noun class of their own. The ku- that begins every dictionary form of a verb is a class prefix exactly like ki- or ma-,…
15Place Words and the -ni EndingSwahili turns almost any noun into a place word by putting -ni on the end of it. That single ending does the work of a whole set of English prepositions.
16Class 16: A Definite Spot (pa-)Swahili has three ways of treating a place: as an exact point, as a general area, or as an inside. Class 16 is the exact one. Its mark is pa-, and it…
17Class 17: A General Area or Direction (ku-)Class 17 is the vaguest of the three place classes and by far the commonest. Its mark is ku-, and it covers a general area, a direction, and movement…
18Class 18: Inside Something (mu-)Class 18 is the narrowest of the three place classes: it puts something inside an enclosure. Its mark is mu-, usually shortened to m- or turning up as mwa.
19Subject Prefixes on the VerbEvery Swahili verb begins by naming its own subject. The prefix comes first, the tense marker second, the stem last, and the three are written as one word.
20Adjectives: AgreementA Swahili adjective follows the noun it describes and copies that noun's class prefix onto itself. One stem therefore appears in a dozen shapes, and none…
21Saying 'of' with -aTo link two nouns — the roof of the house, a cup of tea, the teacher's book — Swahili puts a small word between them, built on the stem -a. Its shape…
22Possessives: my, your, ourSwahili possessives are stems rather than whole words: -angu my, -ako your, -ake his, her, its, -etu our, -enu your to several people, -ao their. Each…
23This, That, and That Over ThereWhere English has two words for pointing, Swahili has three. One points at what is near the speaker, one at what has already been mentioned, and one at…
24Numbers and AgreementSwahili numbers fall into two groups. The small native ones take class prefixes exactly as adjectives do; the ones borrowed from Arabic never change at…
25All, Having, and AnyThree very common stems behave like adjectives, following their noun and taking its class prefix: -ote all, -enye having, and -o-ote any at all.
26Present Tense with -na-The present is the first tense to learn and by far the commonest. It is built out of three pieces: the subject prefix, the marker -na-, and the verb stem.
27Past Tense with -li-The past tense is built with -li-, sitting between the subject prefix and the verb stem. Nothing else about the verb changes, and the stem itself never…
28Future Tense with -ta-The future is built with -ta-, placed between the subject prefix and the verb stem. No helping verb is involved, and the stem is untouched.
29The Perfect with -me--me- says an action is complete and that its result is still with us. That second half is what separates it from the plain past, and it is why so many…
30The Habitual hu-hu- marks something done out of habit, or something true in general. It is unlike every other tense marker in one striking way: it replaces the subject…
31NegationSwahili adds no word for not. It rebuilds the front of the verb, and in the present it changes the end as well. Each tense negates differently, so the…
32The Infinitive ku-The infinitive is the verb with ku- in front of it: kusoma, kufanya, kununua. Many dictionaries, this course's included, list only the stem, written with…
33Short Verbs That Keep ku-A handful of verbs have a stem of just one syllable: -la eat, -nywa drink, -ja come, -wa be, -pa give. A Swahili word is stressed on its second-to-last…
34Giving OrdersA command to one person is the barest form a Swahili verb takes: the stem alone, with no prefix of any kind. That makes the imperative the shortest verb…
35The SubjunctiveThe subjunctive is the form for what should happen rather than what does. It is made by dropping the tense marker altogether and changing the stem's…
36Go and Do: -ka-After a verb of going, Swahili says go and buy without a word for and. It puts -ka- into the second verb instead, and that verb takes the subjunctive…
37Object Markers Inside the VerbSwahili can put the object inside the verb, in a slot between the tense marker and the stem. Once it is there, the object noun itself becomes optional,…
38Relative ClausesTo say the work that is available or where I put it, Swahili uses no separate relative word. It builds the relative into the verb, as a piece that agrees…
39If and When with -ki--ki- goes in the tense slot and turns the verb into a condition. It covers if and when about something genuinely possible, and while about something…
40Unreal Conditions with -nge--nge- describes what would happen in a situation that is not the case. Where -ki- deals with real possibilities, -nge- deals with imagined ones, and…
41The PassiveThe passive puts -w- in front of the stem's final vowel. The thing affected becomes the subject and takes over the agreement, and whoever did it either…
42States with -ik-The ending -ika or -eka says that something is in a state, with nobody in view who put it there. English usually translates it with an adjective —…
43Building New Verbs: Causative and ApplicativeSwahili grows new verbs out of old ones by changing the ending. Two endings do most of the work: one makes somebody else do the action, the other adds a…
44Doing Things to Each OtherThe ending -ana says the action goes both ways. The subject is necessarily more than one person, and English needs the phrase each other to say the same…
45Saying 'is' with ni and siTo say that one thing is another, Swahili uses ni. It is not an ordinary verb: it takes no subject prefix, no tense marker and no agreement, and it is…
46Being Somewhere: -ko, -po, -moLocation has a set of verb forms all to itself: a subject prefix followed by -ko, -po or -mo. The three endings differ in how tightly the place is drawn,…
47There Is: kunakuna states that something exists or is present. It is the place prefix ku- joined to -na with, and it is one of the most useful words in the language.
48Having with -naSwahili has no verb meaning to have. Possession is the subject prefix plus -na, which elsewhere means and or with. nina is literally I am with.
49Asking QuestionsSwahili asks a yes-or-no question by intonation alone. Nothing moves, nothing is added, and the word order of the statement is left exactly as it was.
50Comparing ThingsSwahili does not change the adjective to compare. There is no ending answering to English -er. A separate word sets the two things against each other,…
51kwa, na, and katikaThree small words carry most of what English spreads across a dozen prepositions. Learning what each one covers is more useful than memorising…
52Telling the TimeThe Swahili clock does not start at midnight. It starts at dawn, because near the equator the sun comes up at about six every day of the year. The result…