Learn Hardcore Swahili: Mara ya pili, nilisaidia kukata kitunguu na kuonja mchuzi kabla ya chakula kuandaliwa mezani. - The second time, I helped cut onion and taste the sauce before the meal was prepared on the table.

Mara means time/occasion (as in “first time,” “second time”).
Mara ya pili literally = “the second time” or “on the second occasion.”

Swahili has noun classes, and mara is in noun class 9/10. The possessive/associative word -a agrees with the noun class:

Class 9/10 uses ya → mara ya pili
Class 5/6 would use la, but mara is not in that class, so mara la pili would be wrong.

You’ll also commonly see:

mara ya kwanza – the first time
mara ya tatu – the third time

2. Could I also say Kwa mara ya pili instead of Mara ya pili? Is there any difference?

Yes, Kwa mara ya pili, … is also correct and very common.

Mara ya pili, nilisaidia… – “(The) second time, I helped…”
Kwa mara ya pili, nilisaidia… – “For the second time, I helped…”

The meaning is practically the same here. Kwa highlights “for the second time” a bit more, but in everyday speech they’re often interchangeable in this kind of sentence.

3. In nilisaidia kukata, why do we have kusaidia + ku-verb? Could I say nilisaidia kata kitunguu?

After kusaidia (to help), the verb that describes how you helped is normally in the infinitive form with ku-:

nilisaidia kukata kitunguu – “I helped (by) cutting the onion.”

You cannot drop ku- here; ✗ nilisaidia kata kitunguu is ungrammatical.

The pattern is:

kusaidia kufanya kitu – to help (to) do something
- Alinisaidia kuandika barua. – He/She helped me write the letter.
- Tulifika mapema kusaidia kuosha vyombo. – We arrived early to help wash the dishes.

4. Why is it nilisaidia kukata kitunguu and not nilimsaidia kukata kitunguu? Where is the person I helped?

Both forms are possible, but they say slightly different things.

nilimsaidia kukata kitunguu
- ni- (I) -li- (past) -m- (him/her) -saidia (help)
- “I helped him/her to cut the onion.”
nilisaidia kukata kitunguu
- There is no object (-m-, -wa-, etc.), so the person helped is not specifically mentioned.
- It feels more like: “I helped out by cutting the onion” / “I helped with cutting the onion.”

In your sentence, the focus is on the task (cutting and tasting), not on who was helped.

5. Why is kitunguu singular here? If I cut many onions, shouldn’t it be vitunguu?

Kitunguu is singular (class 7), vitunguu is plural (class 8):

kitunguu – one onion
vitunguu – onions

In real life you probably cut more than one onion, but Swahili often uses the singular when the exact number doesn’t matter, or simply because the speaker thinks of the action in a general way:

“I helped cut the onion” (the specific onion for this dish)
Or just “I helped cut onion” as a generic ingredient.

If you want to emphasize that there were several onions, you can absolutely say:

nilisaidia kukata vitunguu – I helped cut onions.

Both are grammatically correct.

6. What is the nuance of kuonja in kuonja mchuzi? Is it just “taste,” or more like “try”?

Kuonja means to taste in the sense of sampling a small amount to check the flavor.

In kuonja mchuzi, the idea is:

tasting the sauce to check if it is good, needs salt, is ready, etc.

Compare with:

kujaribu – to try (more general: attempt, test)
- kujaribu chakula = try the food (could be taste, could be experiment)
kula – to eat (normal eating, not just a small test taste)

So kuonja mchuzi is specifically “to taste the sauce,” not to eat a full portion.

7. How does kabla ya chakula kuandaliwa mezani work grammatically? Why this order?

The structure is:

kabla ya
- noun
  - ku-verb-w-a
    - (other elements)

Breakdown:

kabla ya – before
chakula – the food
kuandaliwa – to be prepared (infinitive + passive: ku-
- andali-
  - w-
    - a)
mezani – on/at the table

So kabla ya chakula kuandaliwa mezani literally is:

“before the food to-be-prepared on the table”
≈ “before the food was prepared on the table.”

This is a common Swahili pattern where a noun is followed by a ku- verb (often passive) functioning like an English clause:

kabla ya kazi kuanza – before the work begins
baada ya gari kufika – after the car arrives

The order chakula kuandaliwa mezani must stay like that; putting kuandaliwa first would sound odd in this construction.

8. Why is it kuandaliwa and not kuandaa in kabla ya chakula kuandaliwa mezani?

kuandaa – to prepare (something)
kuandaliwa – to be prepared (passive)

In your sentence, the food is being prepared, not preparing something else, so we need the passive:

kabla ya chakula kuandaliwa mezani
→ before the food was prepared on the table.

If you said chakula kuandaa, that would mean “the food to prepare (something),” which doesn’t make sense here. The passive -w- marks that chakula is the thing receiving the action.

9. Why is there no subject prefix on kuandaliwa? Shouldn’t it be something like kuliandaliwa for chakula?

Here kuandaliwa is an infinitive form, not a finite verb with tense and subject agreement. It’s part of the construction kabla ya chakula kuandaliwa mezani, functioning almost like a noun phrase:

“before [the food being prepared on the table].”

When you use ku- infinitives in this kind of kabla ya / baada ya structure, you normally don’t add subject prefixes or tense markers:

kabla ya kazi kuanza – not kabla ya kazi kuanzaa or ikianza in that position
baada ya mvua kunyesha – after it has rained

If you wanted a full clause with tense and subject marking, you could say:

kabla chakula hakijaandaliwa mezani – before the food has been prepared on the table

But that’s a different structure.

10. What does mezani mean exactly, and why do we add -ni?

Meza = table.
Adding -ni makes it a locative form:

mezani = at the table / on the table.

In Swahili, -ni often marks location:

nyumba → nyumbani – at home
shule → shuleni – at school
kanisa → kanisani – in/at church

So kabla ya chakula kuandaliwa mezani is “before the food was prepared on/at the table.”

Depending on context and speaker, mezani can mean:

literally on top of the table
or more generally, at the dining table (place where you eat)

11. In kukata kitunguu na kuonja mchuzi, why do we only say ku- once for each verb and join them with na? Could we say kukata na kuonja mchuzi without repeating the objects?

The pattern in your sentence is:

kukata kitunguu na kuonja mchuzi
- kukata – to cut
- kitunguu – onion
- na – and
- kuonja – to taste
- mchuzi – sauce

You need ku- on each verb because they are both infinitives:

kukata (to cut)
kuonja (to taste)

You can also drop the repeated objects if they are the same, or rearrange, depending on what you want to emphasize. For example:

nilisaidia kukata na kuonja mchuzi – “I helped by cutting and tasting the sauce.”
(Here it’s understood that what you cut and tasted is the sauce, which changes the meaning.)

In your original sentence, repeating each object (kitunguu, mchuzi) makes it crystal clear:

cutting the onion
tasting the sauce

So the original is both grammatical and semantically clear.

12. Could I say kabla ya kuandaliwa chakula mezani instead? Would that still be correct?

That word order is not natural in this construction. The usual and preferred pattern is:

kabla ya + [noun] + ku-verb-w-a
→ kabla ya chakula kuandaliwa mezani

If you move chakula after kuandaliwa, it sounds awkward or unclear to native speakers, because it breaks that typical sequence and makes it less obvious that chakula is the thing being prepared.

So:

✔ kabla ya chakula kuandaliwa mezani – natural
✗ kabla ya kuandaliwa chakula mezani – unidiomatic in standard Swahili in this meaning.