Learn Hardcore Swahili: Kondoo anakunywa maji mtoni asubuhi. - The sheep drinks water in the river in the morning.

Kondoo means lamb or sheep. In Swahili it’s an irregular noun that looks the same in singular and plural (class 9/10). In our sentence it’s singular—one lamb—because the verb prefix a- (he/she) agrees with a single subject.

How do we break down anakunywa into its parts?

Anakunywa is made of three pieces:

a- : subject prefix for he/she
-na- : present-tense marker (is …ing)
-kunywa : the verb base to drink
Put together, anakunywa = he/she is drinking.

Why does the verb still have ku? Shouldn’t the root be just nywa?

Many Swahili verbs keep the ku- of the infinitive as part of the root (especially verbs that begin with a nasal). Here kunywa is the full “dictionary” form (to drink). When you add subject + tense, you attach those to kunywa (not just nywa), hence a + na + kunywa → anakunywa.

Why is maji in a plural form, and what class is it?

Maji (water) is a mass noun treated as plural in Swahili (class 6). There is no singular ji. Liquids, grains and other “mass” items often behave like plurals even though you translate them as uncountable in English.

How does mtoni mean at the river?

Swahili forms a locative by adding -ni to a noun.

mto = river
mto
- -ni = mtoni = in/at the river

How do we express in the morning, and why isn’t there a preposition before asubuhi?

Asubuhi on its own means morning or in the morning. Swahili doesn’t require a preposition—time-of-day words function as adverbs. Placing asubuhi after the verb phrase is the norm. You could front it for emphasis (Asubuhi kondoo …), but standard word order leaves it at the end.

I don’t see any words for a or the. How does Swahili handle articles?

Swahili has no separate articles. Definiteness or indefiniteness is inferred from context or clarified with demonstratives (e.g. kondoo huyu “this lamb”) or quantifiers (e.g. kondoo moja “one lamb”).

What is the typical word order in this Swahili sentence?

The order is Subject – Verb – Object – Place – Time (S V O Pt T):
Kondoo (S) anakunywa (V) maji (O) mtoni (Place) asubuhi (Time).

Why do we say maji mtoni instead of using ya to link them (e.g. maji ya mto)?

Mtoni already means “in/at the river.” There’s no need for a genitive connector ya. If you said maji ya mto, you’d mean “water of the river” (river water) rather than “water at the river.”