Learn Hardcore Swahili: Kabla hujapika, ni vizuri kuandika orodha ya ununuzi kwenye karatasi moja. - Before you cook, it is good to write a shopping list on one piece of paper.

So grammatically it is “before you have not yet cooked,” but idiomatically it just means “before you cook.” It focuses on the time before the action has happened.

Why is it hujapika and not something like ukipika or kupika?

All three are possible structures, but they are not identical in feel or grammar:

Kabla hujapika
- Uses the negative perfect: before you have cooked / before you have not yet cooked.
- Very common and natural; emphasizes the time before the action has happened.
Kabla ya kupika
- Uses the infinitive kupika after kabla ya.
- Also correct and common: “before cooking / before you cook.”
Kabla ukipika
- This sounds odd/wrong in standard Swahili.
- Ukipika usually means “when you cook / if you cook.” Putting it directly after kabla doesn’t fit well.

So hujapika (or kabla ya kupika) is the normal way to say “before you cook.”

In Kabla hujapika, where is the “you”? Why isn’t wewe written?

Swahili usually shows the subject inside the verb prefix, not as a separate pronoun:

huja- = “you (singular) have not yet…”
- u- (you) is built into this pattern.

That means hujapika already contains “you”, so adding wewe is optional and often unnecessary.

You could say:

Kabla wewe hujapika

but it sounds heavy and is usually only used for emphasis (e.g., contrasting you with someone else). Native speakers are happy with just:

Kabla hujapika = “Before you cook.”

How is the negative perfect huja- formed, and what would it look like with other subjects?

The pattern is:

huja- + verb = “have not yet [verb]”

Some common forms:

Sijapika = I have not yet cooked
Hujapika = You (sing.) have not yet cooked
Hajajapika = He/She has not yet cooked
Hatujapika = We have not yet cooked
Hamjapika = You (pl.) have not yet cooked
Hawajapika = They have not yet cooked

So hujapika is the 2nd person singular form (“you haven’t cooked yet”), used here after kabla for “before you cook.”

What does the structure ni vizuri kuandika … mean? Where is the “it” in “it is good to write …”?

Ni vizuri kuandika … literally is:

ni = is
vizuri = good / well
kuandika = to write / writing

Swahili uses this as an impersonal construction:

Ni vizuri kuandika … = It is good to write … / It’s good to write …

There is no separate word for “it”; the idea of “it” is contained in the general ni vizuri structure. This is very common:

Ni muhimu kusoma = It is important to read
Ni rahisi kuelewa = It is easy to understand

Why is kuandika (the infinitive) used instead of a conjugated verb like unaandika?

After expressions like:

ni vizuri (it is good)
ni muhimu (it is important)
ni rahisi (it is easy)

Swahili typically uses the infinitive (ku- + verb) to express “to do / doing”:

Ni vizuri kuandika orodha …
= It is good to write / writing a list …

If you said:

Ni vizuri unaandika orodha …

this would sound wrong in standard Swahili. The conjugated verb is not used in this structure; the infinitive is.

What does orodha ya ununuzi literally mean, and how does the ya work here?

Breakdown:

orodha = list
ya = of (linking word for class 9/10 nouns like orodha)
ununuzi = buying / purchasing

So literally:

orodha ya ununuzi = list of buying / list of purchases, i.e. a shopping list.

The ya is an associative marker meaning “of”, and it changes depending on the noun class. Here orodha is in the N-class (9/10), which uses ya.

Other examples:

kitabu cha Kiswahili = book of Swahili / Swahili book
mfuko wa karatasi = bag of paper / paper bag

What is the relationship between kununua and ununuzi?

kununua = to buy (verb)
ununuzi = buying / purchase / shopping (noun)

Ununuzi is formed from the verb -nunua using a noun-forming pattern. It turns an action into a thing/concept:

kulipa → malipo = to pay → payment(s)
kula → chakula = to eat → food

So in the sentence:

orodha ya ununuzi uses the noun “buying/purchases”, not the verb “to buy.”

What does kwenye mean here, and could we use something else instead?

Kwenye is a common preposition meaning roughly:

on / in / at / onto / into (location or surface, depending on context)

In kwenye karatasi moja, it means “on one piece of paper.”

You could also say:

katika karatasi moja = in/inside one piece of paper (still understandable, though “in” a paper is a bit less natural in English)
juu ya karatasi moja = on top of one piece of paper

Kwenye is very flexible and extremely common in everyday speech, so kwenye karatasi moja is perfectly natural.

Why say karatasi moja instead of just karatasi?

karatasi = paper / a sheet of paper (context decides)
moja = one

Karatasi moja emphasizes “one single sheet/piece of paper.” It suggests you put the whole list on one page, not scattered around.

In English we might say:

“on one piece of paper”
rather than just “on paper.”

You could say just kwenye karatasi, but you lose that sense of “a single sheet.”

Can the word order be changed? For example, can we say: Ni vizuri kuandika orodha ya ununuzi kwenye karatasi moja kabla hujapika?

Yes. Both orders are grammatically fine:

Kabla hujapika, ni vizuri kuandika orodha ya ununuzi kwenye karatasi moja.
Ni vizuri kuandika orodha ya ununuzi kwenye karatasi moja kabla hujapika.

The meaning is the same: “Before you cook, it is good to write a shopping list on one piece of paper.”

Putting Kabla hujapika at the start slightly emphasizes the time condition (“before you cook…”), while putting it at the end sounds a bit more neutral, but in practice there’s no big difference.