Learn Hardcore Swahili: Leo mama amenunua koti jipya la kijivu kwa sababu usiku kunakuwa na baridi. - Today mother has bought a new gray jacket because at night it becomes cold.

amenunua = he/she has bought (recently / result is relevant now)
- Often used for actions completed today or whose result is still important now.
- Fits well with leo (today), and with the idea that the coat is now new and available.
alinunua = he/she bought (simple past)
- More neutral past; does not highlight the present result.
- Could sound more like “she bought it (at some point in the past)”.

In everyday speech, with leo, Swahili speakers very commonly use -me- (perfect), so amenunua feels more natural here than alinunua.

How is the verb amenunua built up morphologically?

amenunua can be broken down as:

a- = subject prefix (she/he, class 1)
-me- = perfect tense marker (completed action with present relevance)
-nunua = verb root “to buy”

So a-me-nunua literally means “he/she has bought”.

Why is it koti jipya and not koti mpya?

The adjective -pya (new) must agree with the noun class of the noun it describes.

koti (coat) is usually treated as noun class 5 (singular), whose agreement prefix for adjectives is ji-.
Therefore, -pya becomes jipya to match koti.

Some common adjective agreements:

Class 1 (mtu) → mtu mzuri
Class 2 (watu) → watu wazuri
Class 5 (koti) → koti jipya
Class 6 (makoti) → makoti mapya

So koti mpya is grammatically off; koti jipya is the correct agreement.

Why do we say koti jipya la kijivu instead of just koti jipya kijivu?

In Swahili, many colors are expressed using a structure like:

Noun + adjective + la/ya/cha/... + color-word

Here:

koti = coat (class 5)
jipya = new (agrees with class 5)
la = possessive/associative concord for class 5
kijivu = grey (literally ash, from jivu)

So koti jipya la kijivu is literally “a new coat of grey (color)”.

You can sometimes hear koti la kijivu jipya, but the most common and natural order is:

Noun + descriptive adjective + la/ya/... + color
koti jipya la kijivu

Why is the word la used before kijivu? Why not ya or something else?

The word la is an agreement marker matching the noun koti.

koti is in noun class 5.
The associative/possessive concord for class 5 is la (singular), ya is for other classes like class 9/10 or class 6 plural.

Some examples:

gari jipya la kijani – a new green car (gari, class 5 → la)
kitabu kipya cha Kiswahili – a new Swahili book (kitabu, class 7 → cha)
meza mpya ya kahawia – a new brown table (meza, class 9 → ya)

So la is required because it agrees with koti.

What exactly does kijivu mean here?

kijivu literally comes from jivu = ash.

From this, kijivu is used to mean the color “grey”, like the color of ash.

So koti jipya la kijivu = “a new grey coat” (literally, “a new coat of ash/grey color”).

Why is it kwa sababu and not just sababu for “because”?

sababu by itself means “reason”.
kwa sababu literally means “for reason / for the reason that”, and functions as the conjunction “because”.

So:

kwa sababu = because
sababu = a reason, cause

In the sentence:

kwa sababu usiku kunakuwa na baridi
= because at night it gets cold.

Why is usiku used without any preposition like “at”, as in “at night”?

In Swahili, many time expressions are used directly, without a preposition:

asubuhi – in the morning
jioni – in the evening
leo – today
kesho – tomorrow
usiku – at night

So usiku by itself can mean “at night”.

The phrase kwa sababu usiku kunakuwa na baridi is naturally understood as:

“because (at) night it gets cold”

What does kunakuwa na baridi literally mean? How does it work grammatically?

kunakuwa na baridi comes from the verb kuwa (to be) in the structure kuwa na (to have / to be with).

Breakdown:

ku- (here functioning as an impersonal/“it/there” subject in weather or general-state expressions)
-nakuwa = is / becomes (from kuwa, with -na- marking present/ongoing aspect)
na baridi = with cold

So kunakuwa na baridi is like saying:

“it is with cold / it becomes with cold”
→ “it gets cold / there is coldness”

Other similar expressions:

kuna baridi – it’s cold / there is cold
kutakuwa na mvua – there will be rain

Why is it kunakuwa na baridi instead of kunakuwa baridi?

Using na after kuwa is very common to express “there is / there is a presence of …” or “to have”.

kuwa na baridi = to have cold / to be with cold
kunakuwa na baridi = it/there becomes/is with cold → “it gets cold”

If you said kunakuwa baridi, it sounds more like “it becomes cold (adjective)” but it is less idiomatic as a description of weather. Swahili tends to use:

kuna baridi
kunakuwa na baridi

for “it is cold / it gets cold” in the sense of there being cold in the environment.

Can we say Leo mama amenunua or Mama amenunua leo? Is the position of leo fixed?

The position of leo is flexible. All of these are possible:

Leo mama amenunua koti jipya la kijivu...
Mama leo amenunua koti jipya la kijivu...
Mama amenunua leo koti jipya la kijivu... (less common but understandable)

Differences are mostly about emphasis:

Leo mama amenunua... – emphasizes today at the start.
Mama leo amenunua... – emphasizes mama slightly more, but still clearly “today”.

The given sentence with Leo mama amenunua... is very natural: “Today, mom has bought...”

Why is there no word for “the” or “a” in mama, koti, usiku?

Swahili does not use articles like “a, an, the”. Nouns normally appear without any article:

mama can be “a mother”, “the mother”, or “mom” depending on context.
koti can be “a coat” or “the coat”.
usiku can be “night” or “the night / at night”.

English speakers must supply a/the based on context:

Leo mama amenunua koti jipya...
→ “Today mom has bought a new coat...”
(We choose “a” because it’s new information.)

Does mama here mean “my mom”, or just “a mother”? How would you say “my mom” explicitly?

In many contexts, mama on its own is understood as “mom / mother” of the speaker, especially in everyday conversation.

To be explicit, you can say:

mama yangu – my mother/mom
Mama yangu amenunua koti jipya la kijivu...

Without yangu, mama could in theory be “a mother / the mother”, but in a typical sentence like this it’s most naturally taken as “mom”.