Swahili Cheat Sheet

Conjugating verbs formula: pronoun prefix + tense prefix + verb root
You can see this in action in the Tenses section below.

A helpful trick to remember the tense prefixes is by using the common girls name "Natalie". Except in our case, its "na-ta-li".

Keep in mind, this follows the same patterns as verb negation.

Keep in mind, this follows the same patterns as the -jambo greetings.

The example below uses the verb "-cheza" meaning "dance" or "play".

Note: In present tense, verbs ending with "a" change the final "a" to an "i".
           The present tense also drops the tense prefix.
           The past tense uses "ku" instead of "li" as the tense prefix.

"Kuwa" is the word for "to be" in Kiswahili. We conjugate it specially because it behaves strangely in the present tense.

Note: In the present tense, "ni" is used with every pronoun.

The prefixes for these possessives correspond to the noun class of the noun they reference.

First we will start off with some general vocab that is necessary for understanding dates in Kiswahili. Up first are the days of the week.

*NOTE: Kiswahili weeks start with Saturday instead of Sunday (as is customary in the USA). I indicated this using red.
*NOTE2: You will notice that most of these days of the week use Kiswahili numbers. (Including "mosi", an Arabic version of the number "one" in Kiswahili.) Additionally you'll notice that Thursday and Friday are also Arabic number'esque forms instead of the more simplistic numbers.

English	Kiswahili
Saturday	jumamosi
Sunday	jumapili
Monday	jumatatu
Tuesday	jumanne
Wednesday	jumatano
Thursday	alhamisi
Friday	ijumaa

Up next is the months. You will notice these come in two forms. English-like words and numerical indicators. From what I understand, these vary in usage based on location of the Kiswahili speaking area. Our teacher (mwalimu) preferred the numeric ones.

*NOTE: For the numeric version, they have an easy to remember format. They use the phrase mwezi wa ("month of") + number.

English	Kiswahili (Numeric)	Kiswahili (English-Like)
January	mwezi wa kwanza	Januari
February	mwezi wa pili	Februari
March	mwezi wa tatu	Machi
April	mwezi wa nne	Aprili
May	mwezi wa tano	Mei
June	mwezi wa sita	Juni
July	mwezi wa saba	Julai
August	mwezi wa nane	Agosti
September	mwezi wa tisa	Septemba
October	mwezi wa kumi	Oktoba
November	mwezi wa kumi na moja	Novemba
December	mwezi wa kumi na mbili	Desemba

Now finally for the fun part. With this information (and one additional vocab word: tarehe or "date" in English), we can actually communicate some information:

To express an actual date, use the following format:
tarehe (ya) + date number + mwezi wa + month

Example (June 23rd):
tarehe (ya) ishirini na tatu mwezi wa sita

The first thing to know, is that Swahili days center around 7 AM and 7 PM instead of midnight and noon (12's) in USA times.

We will start off with a trick to telling time based on a clock. If you have a clock using standard American timetelling hands, you can determine the Kiswahili time by adding or subtracting 6 hours. (This can be visualized by looking at the the exact opposite number of the hour hand. Aka, half a circle.)

Example (7 o'clock in USA -> 1 o'clock in Kiswahili):

Notice that 6 hours in either direction make the semi-circle that relate the times:

*NOTE: According to the book, some people in Swahili speaking countries actually use their watches like this. They tune it to "American-style" time and just read the opposite hour as seen in the pictures above.

Now for some Kiswahili. Two useful keywords/phrases to know are saa ("hour" in English) and saa ngapi? ("what time is it?").

The follow chart shows how you distinguish 7 AM from 7 PM. In Kiswahili you use asubuhi to mean morning, or jioni/usiku to mean evening or night respectively.

Time	Kiswahili	English Translation
7 AM	saa moja asubuhi	first hour in the morning
7 PM	saa moja jioni/usiku	first hour of the evening/night

So in order to tell time, you can simply change the number to offset from 7 AM/PM. Here are some examples:

Time	Kiswahili
10:00 AM	saa nne asubuhi
12:00 PM (noon)	saa sita asubuhi
5:00 PM	saa kumi na moja asubuhi
8:00 PM	saa mbili jioni/usiku
11:00 PM	saa tano jioni/usiku
12:00 AM (midnight)	saa sita jioni/usiku

Now to get a bit more interesting. Here is how you can say 15, 30, or 45 minutes on the hour.

For 15 or 30 minutes, you use na to add robo (quarter) or nusu (half).

For 45 minutes, you use subtraction. You say something along the lines of "15 minutes before ..." So you use kasarobo (minus a quarter) with the next hour. For instance, 3:45 would be "15 minutes before 4".

Here are some examples:

Time	Kiswahili
5:15 AM	saa kumi na moja na robo usiku
2:30 PM	saa nane na nusu asubuhi
8:45 PM	saa tatu kasarobo jioni

To get a bit more specific, you use the words dakika (minutes) along with na (add) and kasa (less [subtract]).

Here are some examples:

Time	Kiswahili
7:55 PM	saa mbili kasa dakika tano usiku
9:02 AM	saa tatu na dakika mbili asubuhi

The best way to learn this is to do a TON of practice. Truth be told, I quadruple checked myself on most of these and still may have made a mistake. Don't forget to use the sidebar to email me with any errors so that I can correct them! :D

When taking a direct/indirect object in Kiswahili, they add another prefix after the tense prefix.

Some examples of this would be "reading TO someone", or "cooking FOR someone". You can technically use this form on any verb, but it doesn't always make sense. You usually cannot "sleep FOR someone" for example It just doesn't make much sense.

*NOTE: If you wanted to do an action to yourself, such as "cook FOR yourself", then use the Reflexive.

If you recall from earlier lessons, we usually form verbs like so:
Pronoun Prefix + Tense Prefix + Verb Root

We will form the new verbs like so:
Pronoun Prefix + Tense Prefix + Object Prefix + Modified Verb

Before some explanation and examples, we will provide you with some charts:

The first chart shows the new prefix. Half of them are the same as the pronoun prefix, the other half are different. I denote the different ones using red.

Pronoun	Pronoun Prefix	Object Prefix
mimi	ni	ni
wewe	u	ku
yeye	a	m
sisi	tu	tu
ninyi	m	wa
wao	wa	wa

This next chart will make more sense with some examples, but when using this form you have two different types of ending changes for your verbs.

The first is -ia and the other is -ea. To determine which to use, check the word for the main vowel that you pronounce (usually this is the first).

For example, take "-soma" and "-pika", the main vowels in each are: "-soma" and "-pika".

You use the chart below to determine which ending to use based on the root vowel:

Root Verb Vowel	Ending
i, a, u	-ia
e, o	-ea

Following this chart, "-soma" becomes "-somea" and "-pika" becomes "-pikia". To use these in some sentences:

English	Kiswahili
I cook for you.	Mimi ninakupikia.
I read to you (pl.).	Mimi niliwasomea.
They will cook fish for me.	Wao watanipikia samaki.
He reads to us.	Yeye anatusomea sisi.

*NOTE: In the fourth sentence, the "sisi" is optional. The tu identifies that the action is being done "to us", but we can add "sisi" for clarity as necessary.

There is one more thing to note: when forming this new verb form, if the verb would end in a vowel you add an L before the ending from the chart above. This helps with pronunciation.

For instance, take the verb "-nunua". Following the rules from above, "-nunua" would become "-nunuia". Pronouncing this is a little odd with the triple vowel, so we add an L to make it simpler to say: "-nunulia".

This form is almost identical to the Object Prefixes above. I highly recommend you master that before reading this section.

A quick recap:

If you recall from earlier lessons, we usually form verbs like so:
Pronoun Prefix + Tense Prefix + Verb Root

We will form the new verbs like so:
Pronoun Prefix + Tense Prefix + Object Prefix + Modified Verb

To refer to oneself, you use the Object Prefix of ji.

You will also use the same verb ending modification from Object Prefixes above:

Root Verb Vowel	Ending
i, a, u	-ia
e, o	-ea

The same notes about adding an L also apply. Again... please master Object Prefixes.

For example: to "cook FOR oneself", you will start with "-pika". Examine the root vowel "-pika". Then update the ending to "-pikia". To use this in a sentence:

English	Kiswahili
I cook for myself.	Mimi ninajipikia.

Much like in English, Kiswahili also has passive voice. Passive Voice is described as a sentence in which the object is the subject. (Yeah, confusing right?) Well, not really. With an example, it becomes much more clear:

Take the following example:

         The child cooks pizza.

As you can see, the subject is the "child". The verb is the action of "cooking". And the object is the "pizza" (the thing being cooked).

Another way you could say this would be by reversing the subject/object and using introducing the verb "to be":

         The pizza is cooked by the child.

Now, as you can clearly see, the subject is the pizza and the object is the child. This is called the Passive Voice. The child is still technically doing the "cooking", except now the thing being cooked (pizza) is the subject of the sentence.

Finally time for some Kiswahili. They use it very similarly to English, however instead of adding "to be" as seen in the examplse above, Kiswahili adds a suffix to the verb.

The passive voice is formed by adding the one of the following suffixes to your verb: -wa, -liwa, and lewa. This vary based on the root vowel of the verb.

*NOTE: The patterns for the suffixes are similar to the Object Prefixes.                   For convience I'll map them out here:

                         1. If the root-verb ends in a consonant:

Consonant	Ending
Any Consonant Ending	-wa

                         2. If the root-verb ends in a vowel, analyze the ROOT                              vowel:

Root Verb Vowel	Ending
i, a, u	-liwa
e, o	-lewa

Lastly, for the good stuff. Here is an active/passive example in Kiswahili using the same sentence as the English ones above:

Active/Passive	Kiswahili	English
Active	Mtoto anapika piza.	The child cooks pizza.
Passive	Piza anapikwa na mtoto.	The pizza is cooked by the child.

Noun classes are probably one of the hardest parts of learning a bantu language (which Kiswahili is). The good thing is, you have probably been doing this (to some degree) already!

To start out, I will provide you with a scary chart that has everything you need to know about the basics of noun classes (Note: We will focus on classes 1-10 since they are used most commonly):

Class	Noun	Adj.	Prefix	Negation	-a (of)	Poss.
1	mtu	mzuri	a-/yu-*	ha-/hayu-*	wa	wangu
2	watu	wazuri	wa-	hawa-	wa	wangu
3	mti	mzuri	u-	hau-	wa	wangu
4	miti	mizuri	i-	hai-	ya	yangu
5	*Ø-jina	*Ø-zuri	li-	hali-	la	langu
6	majina	mazuri	ya-	haya-	ya	yangu
7	kitu	kizuri	ki-	haki-	cha	changu
8	vitu	vizuri	vi-	havi-	vya	vyangu
9	**ndizi	nzuri	i-	hai-	ya	yangu
10	**ndizi	nzuri	zi-	hazi-	za	zangu
11	ulimi	mzuri	u-	hau-	wa	wangu
14	uhuru	mzuri	u-	hau-	wa	wangu
15	kutaka	kuzuri	ku-	haku-	kwa	kwangu
16	mezani	pazuri	pa-	hapa-	pa	pangu
17	mezani	kuzuri	ku-	haku-	kwa	kwangu
18	mezani	mzuri	m(u)-	ham(u)-	mwa	mwangu

Now that we got the scary part out of the way, let us start breaking down the columns to make sense of this mystery. Keep in mind, eventually you will need to more-or-less memorize this whole table. Luckily most of them follow a pattern and you will pick up a lot of the most common noun classes through repetition during your studies.

I will start by breaking down what each column means, with examples and explaination. Take the first two noun classes (1 and 2). We will start with the Noun column:

Class	Noun	Adj.	Prefix	Negation	-a (of)	Poss.
1	mtu	mzuri	a-/yu-*	ha-/hayu-*	wa	wangu
2	watu	wazuri	wa-	hawa-	wa	wangu

The Noun column is simply an example of the type of nouns that fall into these categories. For the first 10 noun classes, the classes are grouped in pairs: 1 & 2, 3 & 4, 5 & 6, 7 & 8, 9 & 10; where the first class is for singular words, and the second class is for the plural.

In this example, the word used was "mtu" meaning "person", with the plural "watu" meaning "people".

It should be noted that I color coated the prefix that changes between the singular and plurals in red with the root of the word in blue. This is because the noun classes are most easily recognized by their prefixes (especially the plural form prefix!) For example:

• Class 1 & 2 = m-/wa-
• Class 3 & 4 = m-/mi-
• Class 5 & 6 = *Ø-/ma-
• Class 7 & 8 = ki-/vi-
• Class 9 & 10 = **n-/n-

As you can see, by following the patterns in the prefixes of nouns (specifically the prefix of the plural), you can identify which class you should be using.

*NOTE: For Class 5, we use the symbol "Ø". This symbol is used because Class 5 nouns may take different prefixes(or possible none at all). This is another reason why you should classify these nouns by their plural prefix of ma.

**Note: Class 9 & 10 nouns are the same for the singular and plural. For instance, in English we can have one "sheep" or many "sheep". There is no plural such as "sheeps". These noun classes behave the same way. The example used above is "ndizi" meaning one or more "banana(s)".

Now that we know how to identify which class we put nouns into, we can begin using the other columns in the chart. Up next we have Adjectives. In Kiswahili, nearly all adjectives take a prefix and occur AFTER the noun of which they modify. The chart uses the example of "-zuri" being the root word meaning "good; great; beautiful":

Class	Noun	Adj.	Prefix	Negation	-a (of)	Poss.
1	mtu	mzuri	a-/yu-*	ha-/hayu-*	wa	wangu
2	watu	wazuri	wa-	hawa-	wa	wangu

Unfortuntely, this part requires some memorization. For each noun class, there is a different prefix that is used for adjectives describing a noun within that class. Luckily, for the first 10 noun classes, the prefix of the noun is also the prefix for adjectives. (This is purely by coincidence, but its helpful for remembering).

For example, to say "the good people", we look up the word "people" and find "watu". Since the prefix is wa-, we know it is in Class 2. Then we look up the adjective for "good" and find -zuri. Lastly, we remember (or consult the lovely chart) to find the prefix for Class 2 adjectives is coincidentally also "wa-". Now we put it all together: watu wazuri.

*NOTE: A very important exception to this rule applies here for all animate nouns (nouns that describe living things -- such as humans, animals, etc). All animate things (even when they are in a different class), use the m- or wa- adjective prefixes from Class 1 or 2 respectively. This is just something you need to know. Here is a common example:

Rafiki (the word for "friend(s)") is a word in Class 9 & 10 (the singular and plural are the same). Normally, Class 9 & 10 would use n- for both singular and plural, but since friends are living people, they use m- and wa-. So if you have a "good friend", you would have: Rafiki mzuri.

This next part should look very, very similar to you, because it is what we have been doing to conjugate verbs for Pronouns. Basically whenever you use a noun as a subject, instead of using "ni", "u", "a", etc. we will use the prefix from the chart. This can be applied to verb conjugations, Object Prefixes, Places, etc.

Class	Noun	Adj.	Prefix	Negation	-a (of)	Poss.
1	mtu	mzuri	a-/yu-*	ha-/hayu-*	wa	wangu
2	watu	wazuri	wa-	hawa-	wa	wangu

The easiest way to see this is to compare Class 1 nouns with yeye. Since yeye is the third-person pronoun, it can be used to replace most of the nouns from Class 1 because it contains people words.

If you look in the chart, you will notice that Class 1 and yeye take the same prefix: a- (or yu- for Places).

This can be very easily explained with an example. For instance, if you said: "he sings", you know "he" is "yeye" and "sing" is "-imba", so you form the sentence: Yeye anaimba.

Now imagine that you want to say "the child sings". You know the word for "sing" ("-imba"). You know the word for "child" ("mtoto"). But now what? Well, similarly to adjectives, you determine mtoto is Class 1 because it is the singular of mtoto/watoto which matches the first pair of classes: m/wa. Then you look into the table and see Class 1 uses the prefix a-. This produces the sentence: Mtoto anaimba.

You can apply this same process for any noun. Just determine what class it is from, and use the prefix in the table for the appropriate class instead of the a- in this example.

*NOTE: There is one, very important exception to this rule for all animate nouns (nouns that describe living things -- such as humans, animals, etc). All animate things (even when they are in a different class), use the a- or wa- prefixes from Class 1 or 2 respectively. This is just something you need to know. Here is a common example:

Rafiki (the word for "friend(s)") is a word in Class 9 & 10 (the singular and plural are the same). Normally, Class 9 & 10 would use i- and zi-, but since friends are living people, they use a- and wa-. So if your "friend sings", you would have: Rafiki anaimba.

These function basically the same was as Negation, and follow the same pattern mentioned above (in terms of how you find which prefix to use). So I am just gonna give you an example:

Class	Noun	Adj.	Prefix	Negation	-a (of)	Poss.
1	mtu	mzuri	a-/yu-*	ha-/hayu-*	wa	wangu
2	watu	wazuri	wa-	hawa-	wa	wangu

Imagine that you now want to say "the child does not sing". You know the word for "sing" ("-imba"). You know the word for "child" ("mtoto"). But now what? Well, similarly to adjectives, you determine mtoto is Class 1 because it is the singular of mtoto/watoto which matches the first pair of classes: m/wa. Then you look into the table and see Class 1 uses the negation prefix ha-. This produces the sentence: Mtoto haimbi.

*NOTE: The same, very important exception to this rule applies here too, for all animate nouns (nouns that describe living things -- such as humans, animals, etc). All animate things (even when they are in a different class), use the ha- or hawa- negation prefixes from Class 1 or 2 respectively. This is just something you need to know. Here is a common example:

Rafiki (the word for "friend(s)") is a word in Class 9 & 10 (the singular and plural are the same). Normally, Class 9 & 10 would use hai- and hazi-, but since friends are living people, they use ha- and hawa-. So if your "friend does not sings", you would have: Rafiki haimbi.

This may seem kind of silly to an English speaker, but the word "of" changes based on the noun it follows. The root for "of" is technically -a, so you will notice the prefixes will more-or-less match the prefixes we used for adjectives. But they are NOT always the same, so it is best to just learn these seperately (most of them are 2 or 3 letter words anyhow).

As always, I will present you with an example that should be pretty self-explainitory:

Class	Noun	Adj.	Prefix	Negation	-a (of)	Poss.
1	mtu	mzuri	a-/yu-*	ha-/hayu-*	wa	wangu
2	watu	wazuri	wa-	hawa-	wa	wangu

Let's say you want to write the sentence "the child of Bob". We know "child" is "mtoto". Well, similarly to above, you determine mtoto is Class 1 because it is the singular of mtoto/watoto which matches the first pair of classes: m/wa. Then you look into the table and find the appropriate word for "of" being wa. Then you put it all together to get: mtoto wa Bob.

*NOTE: A very important exception to this rule applies here too, for all animate nouns (nouns that describe living things -- such as humans, animals, etc). All animate things (even when they are in a different class), use the wa version for "of" from Class 1 or 2. This is just something you need to know. Here is a common example:

Rafiki (the word for "friend(s)") is a word in Class 9 & 10 (the singular and plural are the same). Normally, Class 9 & 10 would use ya or za respectively, but since friends are living people, they use wa. So if there is a "friend of Bob", you would have: Rafiki wa Bob.

If you aren't familiar with the root words for possessives, review them here: Possessives. Possessives for noun classes work the same way, except they will use the prefixes from the table. (Note: These ones ARE the same as the "of" words. Maybe that will make it easier to remember. Or else just learn them seperately).

Once again, I will leave you with a simple example that should be self-explainitory:

Class	Noun	Adj.	Prefix	Negation	-a (of)	Poss.
1	mtu	mzuri	a-/yu-*	ha-/hayu-*	wa	wangu
2	watu	wazuri	wa-	hawa-	wa	wangu

Let's say you want to write the sentence "my child". We know "my" is translated to the base word of "-angu". We know "child" is "mtoto". Well, similarly to above, you determine mtoto is Class 1 because it is the singular of mtoto/watoto which matches the first pair of classes: m/wa. Then you look into the table and find the appropriate possessive prefix w-. Then you put it all together to get: mtoto wangu.

*NOTE: The most complicated (but similar to exceptions above) applies here for SOME animate nouns (nouns that describe living things -- such as humans, animals, etc). Animate nouns that are NOT in Class 9 & 10, use the w- possessive prefixes from Class 1 or 2 respectively. REMEMBER: This does NOT apply to Class 9 & 10. This is just something you need to know. Here is an example to distingush:

Class	Noun	English	Example
9	Rafiki (sg.)	My friend	Rafiki yangu
10 (or 6)	Rafiki (pl.)	My friends	Rafiki zangu
7	kiongozi	My leader	Kiongozi wangu
8	viongozi	My leaders	Viongozi wangu

To talk about location, you will use three types of words. Their roots are "-po", "-ko", and "-mo".

We will start with their usages/meaning:

Kiswahili	Meaning/Usage
-po	Specific location ("is right here")
-ko	General location ("is at/is on")
-mo	Internal location ("is inside of")

The format for these are:

    pronoun prefix + -po/-ko/-mo

Here are some examples in present tense:

Pronoun	-po/-ko/-mo	Present (+)	Negation (-)
mimi	-po	nipo	sipo
wewe	-ko	uko	huko
yeye*	-mo	yumo*	hayumo*
sisi	-po	tupo	hatupo
ninyi	-ko	mko	hamko
wao	-mo	wamo	hawamo

*NOTE: In the third-person singular (i.e. "yeye" case), the prefix changes from "a" to "yu" ("ha" to "hayu") for locations

For the past tense, you use the past tense of kuwa merged with -po/-ko/-mo as a single word:

Pronoun	-po/-ko/-mo	Past (+)	Negation (-)
mimi	-po	nilikuwa(po)	sikuwa(po)
wewe	-ko	ulikuwa(ko)	hukuwa(ko)
yeye	-mo	alikuwa(mo)	hakuwa(mo)
sisi	-po	tulikuwa(po)	hatukuwa(po)
ninyi	-ko	mlikuwa(ko)	hamkuwa(ko)
wao	-mo	walikuwa(mo)	hawakuwa(mo)

Here is the future tense. It is formed similarly to the past tense:

Pronoun	-po/-ko/-mo	Future (+)	Negation (-)
mimi	-po	nitakuwa(po)	sitakuwa(po)
wewe	-ko	utakuwa(ko)	hutakuwa(ko)
yeye	-mo	atakuwa(mo)	hatakuwa(mo)
sisi	-po	tutakuwa(po)	hatutakuwa(po)
ninyi	-ko	mtakuwa(mo)	hamtakuwa(mo)
wao	-ko	watakuwa(ko)	hawatakuwa(ko)

*NOTE: As you probably noticed, I had all the -po/-ko/-mo's in parenthesis for Past and Future tense. If you are mentioning a location in your statement, you can leave out the -po/-ko/-mo. It is only ESSENTIAL when you are not specifying a location in your statement (for obvious reasons).

Lastly, I will provide you with some example sentences:

Pronoun	Tense	Kiswahili	English
Mimi	Present (+)	Nipo hapa.	I am here.
Sisi	Past (-)	Hatukuwa(ko) nyumbani.	We were not at home.
Yeye	Present (+)	Yumo nyumbani.	He is at home.
Wao	Future (+)	Watakuwa(po) kazini.	They will be at work.

*NOTE: Some nouns will add "-ni" at the end when talking about location. I do not know of a rule other than the fact that it seems to happen to most nouns.