Bakuli hizo zimetayarishwa mapema na zimejazwa maembe baridi.

Those bowls have been prepared early and have been filled with cold mangoes.

Breakdown of Bakuli hizo zimetayarishwa mapema na zimejazwa maembe baridi.

• mapema: early
• na: and
• baridi: cold
• hizo: those
• kujazwa: to be filled
• bakuli: the bowl
• kutayarishwa: to be prepared
• embe: the mango

Questions & Answers about Bakuli hizo zimetayarishwa mapema na zimejazwa maembe baridi.

Why is zimetayarishwa in the perfect passive tense instead of a simple active form?

It’s in the perfect passive because the speaker wants to express that the bowls have already been prepared (completion) and to focus on the bowls as recipients of the action (passive). In Swahili, the perfect passive uses the perfect marker -me- plus the passive suffix -wa.

Can you break down zimetayarishwa into its component parts?

Yes. zimetayarishwa =
• zi- (class 8 subject marker, “they” for bakuli)
• -me- (perfect tense marker, “have”)
• tayarish- (verb root “prepare”)
• -wa (passive voice suffix, “been … ed”)

Why is na placed between zimetayarishwa and zimejazwa? Does it mean “by” or “and”?

Here, na is the conjunction “and”, linking two perfect passive clauses:
1) zimetayarishwa (“they have been prepared”)
2) zimejazwa (“they have been filled”)

It does not indicate an agent (that would be na + agent after the verb).

What role does mapema play, and why is it positioned after zimetayarishwa?

mapema is an adverb meaning “early.” In Swahili, adverbs of time usually follow the verb they modify. So zimetayarishwa mapema means “they have been prepared early.” You could also place mapema at the very start for emphasis, but the default is right after the verb.

How do you form maembe baridi (“cold mangoes”) and why isn’t it baridi maembe?

Adjectives in Swahili come after the noun they describe. Here:
• maembe = “mangoes” (class 6 noun)
• baridi = “cold” (adjective; short adjectives don’t take extra prefixes)
Thus maembe baridi = “cold mangoes.”

What does hizo agree with, and why not haya or ile?

hizo is the class 8 plural demonstrative for “these.” It agrees with bakuli (class 8). The options are:
• hizo = “these” (near speaker, class 8 plural)
• haya = “these” but for class 6 plural
• ile = “that/those” (farther away)
So bakuli hizo correctly means “these bowls.”

If I wanted to talk about one bowl instead of many, how would zimetayarishwa and zimejazwa change?

With one bowl (class 5 singular), use the subject marker li-. The perfect passive forms become:
• limetayarishwa (“it has been prepared”)
• limejazwa (“it has been filled”)
Example:
Bakuli hilo limetayarishwa mapema na limejazwa embe baridi.