Jioni hii, tutakutana katika mkahawa mpya mjini.

we

Breakdown of Jioni hii, tutakutana katika mkahawa mpya mjini.

• kwenye: at
• katika: in
• jioni: the evening

Questions & Answers about Jioni hii, tutakutana katika mkahawa mpya mjini.

What does Jioni hii literally consist of, and why is hii used instead of another word?

• Jioni is the Swahili noun for “evening.”
• hii is a demonstrative adjective meaning “this,” and it agrees with noun-class 9 (to which jioni belongs).
• In Swahili, demonstratives follow the noun and take the same noun-class prefix.
• Alternatively, you could say Jioni ya leo, using the connector ya (“of”), which also means “this evening.”

How is tutakutana formed, and why is there no separate word for “we”?

tutakutana breaks down into four parts:

1. tu- (subject prefix for “we”)
2. -ta- (future-tense marker)
3. kutana (verb root “meet each other”)
4. -a (final vowel common to positive verbs)
   Swahili is a pro-drop language, so the subject (“we”) is encoded in tu- and you don’t need sisi.

Why is katika used before mkahawa, and can I use something else?