Breakdown of Nimesoma robo ya kitabu hiki leo.
Questions & Answers about Nimesoma robo ya kitabu hiki leo.
The prefix ni- is the subject marker for “I” (first person singular).
So:
- ni- = I
- -me- = perfect tense marker (completed action with present relevance)
- soma = to read / to study
Together, nimesoma literally builds up as “I–have–read / I–have–studied.”
The infix -me- marks the perfect / completed aspect, often with a sense of present relevance. In many contexts it corresponds to English “have done”:
- Nimesoma – I have read / I have studied (and the result is relevant now).
Compared to other common tense markers:
- -na-: Ninasoma = I am reading / I read (habitually, or right now depending on context).
- -li-: Nilisoma = I read / I studied (simple past, seen as completed in the past without necessarily stressing a result now).
So Nimesoma robo ya kitabu hiki leo suggests “By now today, I have reached a quarter of this book.”
Swahili does not use a separate auxiliary verb like English have in perfect tenses.
Instead, the tense/aspect is marked inside the verb with an infix such as -me-.
So:
- English: I have read … (auxiliary have
- past participle).
- Swahili: Ni-me-soma … (subject ni-
- perfect -me-
- verb root soma).
- perfect -me-
There is no extra word for “have” because that meaning is already included in the infix -me-.
The verb soma can mean both “to read” and “to study”, depending on context.
In Nimesoma robo ya kitabu hiki leo:
- The direct object is kitabu hiki (this book),
so the most natural understanding is “I have read a quarter of this book today.”
In another context, with school / university as the topic, nimesoma could easily be understood as “I have studied.” Context decides whether the focus is “reading” or “studying.”
Yes, robo normally means “a quarter / one fourth.”
In this sentence:
- robo ya kitabu hiki = a quarter of this book.
Some other useful fraction words:
- nusu – half
- sehemu ya tatu – one third
- sehemu ya nne – one quarter (another way to say it, though robo is more common for a quarter of something).
So if you said Nimesoma nusu ya kitabu hiki leo, it would mean “I have read half of this book today.”
The possessive connector (“of”) in Swahili must agree with the noun class of the word it follows.
Here, the main word in the phrase is robo, which belongs to the N-class (9/10).
For N-class nouns, the possessive form is ya:
- robo ya kitabu hiki = a quarter of this book.
The form cha is used with class 7 (ki-) nouns, for example:
- kikombe cha chai – a cup of tea.
If we wrongly said robo cha kitabu hiki, we would be making cha agree with kitabu instead of robo, which is ungrammatical. Agreement must follow the head noun of the phrase, which is robo, so ya is correct.
The normal word order in Swahili is:
- Noun + demonstrative
So:
- kitabu hiki = this book
- mtu huyu = this person
- vitabu hivi = these books
The order hiki kitabu is not the standard neutral form. You may hear demonstratives before nouns in some dialects or for special emphasis/focus, but for ordinary, correct usage you should learn and prefer noun + demonstrative: kitabu hiki.
Kitabu (book) is in noun class 7, which uses the noun prefix ki- in the singular and vi- in the plural (kitabu / vitabu).
Demonstratives also agree with the noun class. For class 7:
- hiki = this (class 7)
- kile = that (far) (class 7)
So:
- kitabu hiki – this book
- vitabu hivi – these books (class 8, the plural of 7, takes hivi).
In our sentence, hiki agrees with the class 7 noun kitabu.
Leo is quite flexible in position. Common possibilities include:
- Leo nimesoma robo ya kitabu hiki.
- Nimesoma leo robo ya kitabu hiki. (less common, but possible in speech)
- Nimesoma robo ya kitabu hiki leo. (your version, very natural)
Placing leo at the beginning (e.g. Leo nimesoma…) often puts emphasis on “today”.
You just can’t insert leo inside the verb complex (you can’t split ni-me-soma), but before or after the verb phrase is fine.
Both can sometimes be translated as “I read a quarter of this book today,” but they differ in aspect:
Nimesoma… (with -me-) – perfect / completed with present relevance.
It often implies: “By now today, I have (already) read a quarter of this book.”Nilisoma… (with -li-) – simple past.
With leo, it sounds like: “(Earlier) today, I read a quarter of this book,” focusing more on the past event itself rather than its result now.
In many everyday situations, both may be acceptable, but nimesoma… leo is especially natural when you’re talking about what you have managed to accomplish up to this point today.
To negate this perfect tense, you use si- as the negative subject marker for “I” and -ja- as the negative perfect marker:
- Sijasoma robo ya kitabu hiki leo.
= I have not read a quarter of this book today.
Structure:
- si- (I, negative)
- -ja- (negative perfect)
- soma (read/study)
You could use an object marker referring to kitabu, but then you normally wouldn’t repeat the same noun immediately after. For example:
- Nimekisoma kitabu hiki hadi robo leo.
= I have read this book up to a quarter today.
Here -ki- is the object marker for a class 7 noun (kitabu), and you’re emphasizing the book and how far you got in it.
In Nimesoma robo ya kitabu hiki leo, the object is a full phrase robo ya kitabu hiki, so an additional object marker is not necessary and would usually feel redundant or awkward in this exact structure.
You need the plural of kitabu hiki, which is vitabu hivi (“these books”).
Notice that robo stays the same, and the possessive ya also stays the same because it still agrees with robo (N-class), not with vitabu.
So the sentence becomes:
- Nimesoma robo ya vitabu hivi leo.
= I have read a quarter of these books today.
Here, vitabu hivi is “these books,” and the phrase robo ya vitabu hivi is “a quarter of these books.”