Kwenye kituo cha basi kulikuwa na msururu mrefu wa abiria.

At the bus station there was a long queue of passengers.

Breakdown of Kwenye kituo cha basi kulikuwa na msururu mrefu wa abiria.

• kuwa na: to have
• kwenye: at
• wa: of
• abiria: the passenger
• basi: the bus
• cha: of
• mrefu: long
• kituo: the station
• msururu: the queue

Questions & Answers about Kwenye kituo cha basi kulikuwa na msururu mrefu wa abiria.

What is the function of Kwenye in this sentence?

Kwenye is a locative preposition meaning “at,” “in,” or “on” when referring to a specific place. Here it introduces the location “at the bus station.”

Why do we say kituo cha basi instead of kituo ya basi?

Swahili uses noun classes to form possessives/genitives. Kituo is a class 7 noun (ki-/vi- class singular), so its genitive concord is -cha. Hence kituo cha basi means “station of bus” (i.e. “bus station”), not ya which is for class 9/10 nouns.

What does kulikuwa na mean, and why is it used here?

Kulikuwa na is the past existential construction:

• ku- (infinitive/locative marker)
• -li- (past tense marker)
• kuwa (to be)
• na (there is/there are marker) Together they mean “there was” or “there were.” It’s used to state that something existed or took place at that location in the past.

Why is the adjective mrefu placed after the noun msururu, and how does agreement work?

In Swahili, most adjectives follow the noun they modify. Msururu (queue/line) is class 3 singular, so its adjective must carry the same class concord, which for class 3 singular is m-. The root is -refu (long), so the full adjective is mrefu. Thus msururu mrefu = “a long queue.”

Why do we say wa abiria instead of za abiria or cha abiria?

The phrase wa abiria is another instance of genitive agreement with msururu. Since msururu is class 3, the genitive prefix is wa-. Za would be for class 10 (plural of class 5), and cha is for class 7, so neither fits here.

Is abiria singular or plural? Does it change in this construction?

Abiria (passenger(s)) is a class 9 noun that can be singular or plural without changing its form. Context tells you it’s plural here (“a long line of passengers”), but the word itself stays abiria.

Can we move kwenye kituo cha basi to the end of the sentence without changing the meaning?

Yes. Swahili word order is relatively flexible for locative phrases. You could say: Kulikuwa na msururu mrefu wa abiria kwenye kituo cha basi. The meaning remains “There was a long line of passengers at the bus station.”