Mimi nitarudi nyumbani kisha kuandikia mama ripoti ya siku yangu shuleni.

I will return home and then write a report to my mother about my day at school.

Breakdown of Mimi nitarudi nyumbani kisha kuandikia mama ripoti ya siku yangu shuleni.

• mimi: I
• siku: the day
• mama: the mother
• yangu: my
• ya: of
• kurudi: to return
• kisha: then
• nyumbani: at home
• ripoti: the report
• kuandikia: to write to
• shuleni: at school

Questions & Answers about Mimi nitarudi nyumbani kisha kuandikia mama ripoti ya siku yangu shuleni.

In Mimi nitarudi nyumbani kisha kuandikia mama ripoti ya siku yangu shuleni, why is Mimi used at the beginning even though the verb nitarudi already shows who is speaking?

Swahili verbs carry subject prefixes (here ni- for first-person singular), so you already know who’s doing the action. Mimi is optional and used for emphasis or clarity, much like stressing I in English when you want to highlight that you—and not someone else—will do it.

How is the future tense formed in nitarudi, and what do the parts ni-, -ta-, and -rudi each mean?

In Swahili, the future tense is marked by inserting -ta- after the subject prefix. So:
ni- = I (subject prefix)
‑ta- = will (future tense marker)
‑rudi = return (verb root)
Combined, nitarudi literally means I-will-return.

What does nyumbani mean, and why isn’t it just nyumba?

Nyumba means “house.” To express location “at” or destination “to,” you add the locative suffix -ni. Class 9 nouns like nyumba undergo a slight vowel change, producing nyumbani, which means “at/to home.”

What is the role of kisha, and why is the verb after it in the infinitive form (kuandikia rather than naandika)?

Kisha means “then” or “after that.” When linking sequential actions, Swahili uses kisha followed by the infinitive (with ku-). That’s why you see kisha kuandikia = “then to write to.”

Why is it kuandikia mama instead of kuandika mama, and what does the extra -i- in kuandikia do?

The base verb is andika (“write”). The applicative extension -i- (forming andik-ia) lets you add a recipient directly to the verb—“to write to someone.” So kuandikia mama means “to write to mother.” Without the applicative, you’d say kuandika ripoti kwa mama (“to write a report for mother”), which is longer and less idiomatic.

How is ripoti ya siku yangu shuleni structured, and why are ya and yangu placed where they are?

Start with ripoti (“report”). To link it to siku (“day”), you use the genitive concord for class 9: ya. Then siku yangu = “my day” (in Swahili, possessive pronouns follow the noun). Finally, shuleni is the locative of shule (“school”), meaning “at school.” So the literal sequence is:
report + of + day + my + at-school.