Ndege hii ina domo kubwa.

A natural word-by-word breakdown is:

• Ndege = bird
• hii = this
• ina = it has
• domo = beak
• kubwa = big

So the structure is basically:

bird this it-has beak big

That is normal Swahili word order.

In Swahili, demonstratives like this and that usually come after the noun, not before it.

So:

• ndege hii = this bird
• not hii ndege in normal neutral usage

This is one of the first big word-order differences English speakers notice.

Ina means it has.

It is made of:

• i- = the subject marker for the noun class of ndege here
• -na = a form used to express possession, so in this kind of sentence it gives the meaning have/has

So ina domo kubwa means it has a big beak.

The i- is a subject agreement marker. Swahili verbs usually show agreement with the subject.

Because ndege belongs to the noun class that takes i- in the singular, the verb also uses i-:

• ndege hii ina... = this bird has...

This agreement is very important in Swahili. English does only a little of this with forms like he has vs they have, but Swahili does it much more systematically.

Ndege is normally treated as a class 9 noun in the singular and class 10 in the plural.

That matters because other words must agree with it:

• singular demonstrative: hii
• singular subject marker: i-

So:

• ndege hii = this bird
• ndege hii ina... = this bird has...

If it were plural, the agreement would change even though ndege itself often stays the same in form.

Here it is singular.

A useful thing to know is that ndege can look the same in both singular and plural. The words around it tell you the number.

In this sentence, the clues are:

• hii = this, not these
• ina = it has, not they have

So ndege hii ina... clearly means this bird has..., not these birds have...

Because adjectives usually come after the noun in Swahili.

So:

• domo kubwa = big beak

This is similar to the position of hii after ndege. In Swahili, many modifiers follow the noun:

• ndege hii = this bird
• domo kubwa = big beak

Swahili does not normally use articles like English a, an, and the.

So domo kubwa can mean:

• a big beak
• the big beak

The exact meaning depends on context. In your sentence, English naturally uses a big beak, but Swahili does not need a separate word for that.

Not always. This is a very common confusion.

Na can mean different things depending on how it is used. For example:

• na by itself can mean and
• it can also be used in expressions related to with or having
• in ina, it is part of the structure meaning has

So in this sentence, do not read ina as if it meant something like and. Here it clearly means has.

You would change the agreement words, not usually the form ndege itself.

• ndege hii = this bird
• ndege hizi = these birds

And the verb would also change:

• ina = it has
• zina = they have

So the beginning would become:

Ndege hizi zina...

That is a good example of how Swahili often shows number through agreement, not just by changing the noun itself.