Chakula kavu kinahitaji maji kabla ya kula.

Dry food needs water before eating.

Breakdown of Chakula kavu kinahitaji maji kabla ya kula.

• kula: to eat
• chakula: the food
• maji: the water
• kabla ya: before
• kuhitaji: to need
• kavu: dry

Questions & Answers about Chakula kavu kinahitaji maji kabla ya kula.

What does kavu mean, and why doesn’t it carry a noun-class prefix like most adjectives?

kavu means dry. It belongs to a small set of “absolute adjectives” in Swahili that do not change form or take class prefixes. You simply place kavu after any noun:

• nguo kavu (dry clothes)
• vazi kavu (dry garment)
• chakula kavu (dry food)

Why is the adjective placed after the noun (i.e. chakula kavu instead of kavu chakula)?

Swahili follows a Noun + Adjective word order. Adjectives normally come after the noun they modify, unlike English, which uses the reverse order.

How is the verb kinahitaji built, and why is the prefix ki- used instead of a- or i-?

kinahitaji breaks down as:

• ki- = subject-agreement marker for noun class 7 (which chakula belongs to)
• -na- = present-tense marker
• hitaji = verb root “need”
  You use ki- rather than a- (class 1) or i- (class 9) because chakula is a class 7 noun.

Why doesn’t the verb include an object marker for maji (e.g. kinahitaji-ya-maji)?

When you mention the object noun openly (maji), Swahili typically omits the object-agreement prefix on the verb to avoid redundancy. Object markers are mostly used when the object is a pronoun or you want special emphasis.

What noun class is maji, and is there a singular form?

maji (“water”) is in class 6, which often contains uncountable or mass nouns. It is always treated as plural, and there’s no common singular form—maji covers both “a little water” and “lots of water.”

Why do we say kabla ya kula instead of kabla kula or kabla kula without ya?

kabla (“before”) is used like a noun and therefore takes the linker ya before its complement. When that complement is an action, you use the infinitive ku- + verb. Hence:
kabla ya kula = “before eating.”

How would you say “Dry foods need water before eating,” using the plural “foods”?

1. Plural of chakula (class 7) → vyakula (class 8)
2. Subject marker for class 8 → vi-
3. kavu stays unchanged
   So the sentence becomes:
   Vyakula kavu vinahitaji maji kabla ya kula.