Learn Hardcore Swahili: Mama ametengeneza saladi tamu ya kabichi na karoti kwa chakula cha mchana. - Mother has made a tasty salad of cabbage and carrots for lunch.

So ametengeneza means “has made / has prepared”. It suggests the salad is already made now; the action is complete but still relevant to the present (e.g. we are going to eat it).

Why is tengeneza used here instead of pika (to cook)?

Kutengeneza is more general: “to make, to prepare, to fix.” It can be used for things that are not actually cooked by heat, like a salad, a sandwich, juice, etc.

Kupika specifically means to cook (usually with heat).

For a salad, kutengeneza saladi sounds natural.
For something like rice, you would more often say kupika wali (“cook rice”).

So Mama ametengeneza saladi… = “Mom has prepared a salad…”, which fits better than “has cooked a salad”.

Why isn’t there a word for “a/the” before saladi?

Swahili does not have separate words for “a” or “the”. Nouns normally appear without articles, and context tells you whether the noun is specific or general.

So saladi tamu can mean:

a delicious salad
the delicious salad

In translation you choose “a” or “the” depending on the context, but in Swahili it’s just saladi.

Why does the adjective tamu come after saladi, instead of before it like in English?

In Swahili, most adjectives follow the nouns they describe.

English: delicious salad
Swahili: saladi tamu

So the pattern is:
[noun] + [adjective]

Other examples:

mtoto mzuri – pretty / good child
kitabu kipya – new book

So saladi tamu literally is “salad delicious.”

Does tamu mean “sweet” or “delicious”? A salad isn’t always sweet.

Tamu can mean both sweet and tasty/delicious, depending on context.

For obviously sweet things: chai tamu (sweet tea), keki tamu (sweet cake).
More generally: chakula tamu can mean “delicious food,” not necessarily sugary.

With saladi tamu, you can understand it as “delicious salad”. If you want to be clearer that you mean “tasty” rather than sugary-sweet, context and tone usually do the job; people won’t assume it must have sugar.

What is the role of ya in saladi tamu ya kabichi na karoti?

Ya here means “of”, linking one noun to another: “salad of cabbage and carrots”.

Swahili uses different forms (wa, ya, cha, vya, la, za, etc.) depending on the noun class of the first noun.

saladi is in noun class 9/10
The “of” word (the connective/possessive) for class 9/10 is ya

So:

saladi ya kabichi na karoti = salad of cabbage and carrots
If the head noun were different, the connective would change, e.g.:
- chakula cha kuku – food of chicken (chicken food / chicken dish)
- vitabu vya Kiswahili – Swahili books

Here, ya agrees with saladi, not with kabichi or karoti.

Why is it kabichi na karoti and not repeating ya before each one (like “of cabbage and of carrots”)?

In Swahili, when several nouns share the same “of” relationship, you normally use the connective only once before the list:

saladi ya kabichi na karoti
= salad of cabbage and carrots

Repeating ya would be unusual and not needed in this simple list. The ya already covers both kabichi and karoti joined by na (“and”).

What does kwa mean in kwa chakula cha mchana, and why is it used here?

Kwa is a very flexible preposition; here it means “for” (indicating purpose).

kwa chakula cha mchana = for lunch

So the phrase tells us the purpose of making the salad:
Mama ametengeneza saladi… kwa chakula cha mchana
= Mom has prepared a salad… for lunch.

Kwa can also mean “with”, “by”, “at”, “in”, depending on context, but here it’s clearly “for (the purpose of)”.

What does chakula cha mchana literally mean, and why cha?

Literally:

chakula = food / meal
mchana = afternoon / daytime
cha = “of” (possessive/connective form for noun class 7/8, where chakula belongs)

So chakula cha mchana = “food of the afternoon”, i.e. lunch.

The word cha agrees with chakula:

class 7 (singular): chakula cha …
class 8 (plural): vyakula vya …

Examples:

chakula cha jioni – evening meal (dinner/supper)
chakula cha asubuhi – morning food (breakfast)

Could we leave out kwa chakula cha mchana and just say Mama ametengeneza saladi tamu ya kabichi na karoti?

Yes, that is perfectly grammatical.

Mama ametengeneza saladi tamu ya kabichi na karoti.
= Mom has made a delicious cabbage-and-carrot salad.

Without kwa chakula cha mchana, you simply don’t specify that it’s for lunch. The added phrase gives extra information about purpose, but it’s not required for the sentence to be correct.

Why is it Mama ametengeneza… instead of having a separate pronoun like “she has made…”?

In Swahili, the subject is built into the verb as a prefix, so you usually don’t need a separate subject pronoun.

ame-tengeneza
- a- = he/she
- -metengeneza = has made

Because Mama is mentioned before the verb, the a- in ametengeneza agrees with Mama.

You almost never say something like yeye ametengeneza (“she she-has-made”) unless you want to emphasize “she” specifically. The normal pattern is:

[Subject noun] + [verb with agreeing subject prefix]
e.g. Mama ametengeneza…

Could we omit Mama and just say Ametengeneza saladi tamu ya kabichi na karoti?

Yes, grammatically that works:

Ametengeneza saladi tamu ya kabichi na karoti.
= He/She has made a delicious cabbage and carrot salad.

Here the subject is only expressed by a- in ametengeneza. However, without context, we don’t know who “he/she” is.

With Mama, the sentence is clearer:

Mama ametengeneza … = Mom has made…

So you can drop Mama if the subject is already known from previous sentences or from the situation.

Can we change the word order and say Mama ametengeneza saladi ya kabichi na karoti tamu?

That word order sounds odd and unnatural in Swahili.

The usual, natural order is:

Noun
Adjective(s)
“Of” phrase(s) with ya/wa/cha/… etc.

So: saladi tamu ya kabichi na karoti is good.

Putting tamu at the end: saladi ya kabichi na karoti tamu feels like you’re trying to say “cabbages and carrots that are delicious”, which doesn’t really match the intended meaning.

To say “a delicious salad of cabbage and carrots”, stick with:

saladi tamu ya kabichi na karoti.

What noun class is saladi, and is it always the same in singular and plural?

Saladi is a loanword (from English “salad”) and is usually treated as a class 9/10 noun. Many class 9/10 nouns have the same form in singular and plural.

So:

singular: saladi
plural: saladi (same form)

To show plural more clearly, you might add an adjective or quantifier in the plural:

saladi nyingi – many salads
saladi mbili – two salads

The ya in saladi tamu ya kabichi… also confirms this, because ya is the connective for class 9/10.