Learn Hardcore Swahili: Jana tulitembea kwenye korido ndefu hadi chumba kipya cha maabara. - Yesterday we walked along a long corridor to the new laboratory room.

Both are correct. Moving jana mainly changes emphasis, not the basic meaning. Swahili has fairly flexible word order for adverbs of time like jana, leo, kesho.

What does kwenye mean here, and could I use katika instead?

Kwenye is a preposition that usually means something like “in / on / at”, and often corresponds to English “in”, “on”, or “along” depending on the noun.

In kwenye korido ndefu, it’s roughly “in/on/along the long corridor”.

You can normally replace kwenye with katika without changing the meaning much:

tulitembea kwenye korido ndefu
tulitembea katika korido ndefu

Both are grammatical. Subtle differences:

kwenye is very common in everyday speech.
katika is a bit more formal or “bookish.”

For most learners, they are interchangeable in simple sentences like this.

Could I say tulitembea kwa korido ndefu instead of kwenye korido ndefu?

No, kwa is not natural here.

Kwa is often used for “at someone’s place”:
- niko kwa mama = I’m at my mom’s place
It’s also used in other special patterns (kwa sababu, kwa mujibu wa, etc.).

For physical location with ordinary nouns like korido, the normal choices are:

kwenye korido ndefu
katika korido ndefu

So tulitembea kwa korido ndefu sounds wrong to native speakers.

What exactly is korido, and how does it behave in Swahili grammar?

Korido is a loanword from “corridor”. It belongs to the N-class (noun classes 9/10), which usually has the same form for singular and plural.

korido = a corridor
korido (again) = corridors

You show singular/plural mostly through agreement and context:

korido ndefu = a long corridor / long corridors (context decides)
korido nyingi = many corridors (here nyingi clearly shows plural)

Why is the adjective ndefu and not mrefu in korido ndefu? Aren’t they both “long”?

The base adjective meaning “long / tall” is -refu.

Its form changes to agree with the noun class:

mtu mrefu = tall person (class 1)
mti mrefu = tall tree (class 3)
meza ndefu = long table (class 9)
barua ndefu = long letter (class 9)

Korido is class 9, so -refu takes the N-class form: ndefu.

So:

korido ndefu = long corridor

You would not say korido mrefu. That would break agreement rules.

In English we often say “walked down the corridor.” Why doesn’t Swahili use a word like “down” here?

Swahili often doesn’t need a separate word like “down” in this context. The combination of:

tulitembea (we walked)
kwenye korido ndefu (in/along the long corridor)

already implies moving along the corridor. If you really wanted to stress “through” or “along,” you might see verbs like:

tulipita kwenye korido ndefu = we passed along the long corridor
tulitembea kupitia korido ndefu = we walked through the long corridor

But in normal speech, tulitembea kwenye korido ndefu is perfectly sufficient for “walked down the long corridor.”

What does hadi mean here, and is it the same as mpaka?

In this sentence, hadi means “up to / as far as / until”:

...kwenye korido ndefu hadi chumba kipya...
→ along the long corridor up to the new room...

Hadi and mpaka overlap a lot in meaning:

Both can mean up to / until.
You could say:
- hadi chumba kipya cha maabara
- mpaka chumba kipya cha maabara

In most contexts they are interchangeable; mpaka may sound slightly more colloquial in some regions, but usage varies by area and speaker.

How does chumba kipya work? Why kipya and not something else?

Chumba = room and belongs to noun class 7.

Class 7 has:

singular: ki- or ch- (here chumba)
plural: vi- (e.g. vyumba = rooms)

Adjectives must agree with the noun class. The adjective “new” is -pya.

Class 7 singular: kipya
Class 8 plural: vipya

So:

chumba kipya = a new room
vyumba vipya = new rooms

Putting the noun first and the adjective second is the normal order:
noun + adjective → chumba kipya, not kipya chumba.

Why is it cha maabara and not ya maabara in chumba kipya cha maabara?

Cha is a possessive agreement marker that must match the class of the first noun (the possessed thing), which is chumba (class 7).

The structure is:

chumba kipya = the new room
cha maabara = of the laboratory

The possessive marker -a takes different forms depending on noun class:

Class 1: wa (mtu wa Mungu)
Class 5/6: la / ya (gari la mtoto / magari ya mtoto)
Class 7/8: cha / vya (chumba cha maabara / vyumba vya maabara)

Because chumba is class 7, you must use cha:

✅ chumba kipya cha maabara
❌ chumba kipya ya maabara (incorrect)

What class is maabara, and how do you make it plural?

Maabara (laboratory) is a noun that generally belongs to the N-class (9/10), which often has the same form for singular and plural.

So:

maabara = a laboratory
maabara = laboratories

You show number through context and agreement:

maabara moja = one laboratory
maabara nyingi = many laboratories

In our sentence, maabara is simply “the laboratory” (contextually singular).

What’s the difference between chumba kipya cha maabara and chumba cha maabara kipya?

Both are grammatically possible, but the meanings are slightly different:

chumba kipya cha maabara
- kipya directly describes chumba
- = “a new room of the laboratory”
- The room is new; the lab may or may not be new.
chumba cha maabara kipya
- kipya is now closer to maabara
- = “a room of the new laboratory”
- The laboratory is new; the room is just one of its rooms (not necessarily newly built/created).

Word order of adjectives and possessive phrases can shift what is being described. In your original sentence, the focus is that the room is new.

Could I say tulienda kwenye korido ndefu hadi chumba kipya cha maabara instead of tulitembea?

You can say tulienda, but the nuance changes:

tulitembea = we walked (specifically, on foot)
tulienda = we went (neutral “go,” without specifying how)

If you want to be clear that you moved on foot, tulitembea is better.

With tulienda kwenye korido ndefu hadi chumba kipya cha maabara, it sounds more like “we went to the new lab room via/through the long corridor,” without highlighting that you were walking.

Is there any subtlety about where jana goes relative to the rest:
Jana tulitembea kwenye korido ndefu hadi chumba kipya cha maabara vs Tulitembea jana kwenye korido ndefu...?

Both are correct, but they can feel slightly different in emphasis:

Jana tulitembea kwenye korido ndefu hadi chumba kipya cha maabara.
- Slight focus on “yesterday” as the setting: As for yesterday, we walked...
Tulitembea jana kwenye korido ndefu hadi chumba kipya cha maabara.
- Slightly more focus on the action: We walked yesterday along the long corridor...

In normal conversation, they’re effectively equivalent, and both sound natural.