Katika chumba cha kulia chakula, tunakaa kimya wakati baba anasema.

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Breakdown of Katika chumba cha kulia chakula, tunakaa kimya wakati baba anasema.

• katika: in
• baba: the father
• kukaa: to sit

Questions & Answers about Katika chumba cha kulia chakula, tunakaa kimya wakati baba anasema.

What does “Katika chumba cha kulia chakula” literally mean, word by word?

Broken down, it’s:

• Katika – in / inside / within
• chumba – room
• cha – of (agreeing with chumba, which is a class 7 noun)
• kulia – literally an infinitive/verb form related to eating (see below), functioning like eating
• chakula – food

So a fairly literal gloss is:

“In the room of eating food”

Idiomatic English: “In the dining room, …”

Why is “cha” used, and why does it seem to appear twice in “chumba cha kulia chakula”?

There are actually two different cha’s playing two different roles:

1. cha in chumba cha kulia…

   • This cha is the associative/possessive marker meaning of, which must agree with the noun chumba (class 7).
   • For class 7, the “of” word is cha.
   • So chumba cha kulia… = room of eating…

2. cha- in chakula

   • Here cha- is part of the noun itself, the noun-class prefix for class 7.
   • chakula is built from (class 7 prefix) + (root ), giving the noun .