Breakdown of Kila Jumatatu, mwalimu huanza somo kwa kurudia msamiati wa wiki iliyopita.
Questions & Answers about Kila Jumatatu, mwalimu huanza somo kwa kurudia msamiati wa wiki iliyopita.
Kila Jumatatu means “every Monday” (or “each Monday” – in this context they’re the same). It describes a regular, repeated action.
You can use kila (“every / each”) with many time expressions:
- kila siku – every day
- kila wiki – every week
- kila mwezi – every month
- kila mwaka – every year
- kila asubuhi – every morning
It normally comes directly before the time word, without any extra preposition: kila Jumatatu, not kila siku ya Jumatatu unless you want a more elaborate phrase for style.
Swahili does not usually use a preposition like “on” before days or dates. The day itself functions as an adverbial of time.
So:
- Jumatatu – Monday / on Monday
- Kila Jumatatu – every Monday
- Januari – January / in January
- Januari 5 – (on) January 5th
You don’t need to add kwa, katika, or any other preposition before Jumatatu here.
In huanza, hu- is a special tense-aspect marker that expresses habitual or general actions (“usually,” “always,” “tends to”).
- mwalimu huanza somo…
→ the teacher usually/always begins the lesson…
Compare with:
- mwalimu anaanza somo…
→ the teacher is beginning / begins the lesson (more neutral, can be here-and-now or generic depending on context).
Key points about hu-:
- It indicates a regular, repeated, or customary action.
- It normally appears without a subject prefix; you say huanza, not ahuanza.
- The subject is understood from context or from a preceding noun:
- Mwalimu huanza somo… – The teacher habitually begins the lesson…
- Wanafunzi huandika majibu. – Students habitually write the answers.
So mwalimu huanza somo implies: As a rule, every Monday, the teacher begins the lesson…
Yes, you can say mwalimu anaanza somo, but there is a nuance:
mwalimu huanza somo kwa kurudia…
→ describes a habitual pattern (this is what the teacher regularly does every Monday).mwalimu anaanza somo kwa kurudia…
→ more neutral; can describe what is happening this particular time, or a general fact, depending on context.
Since the sentence also has kila Jumatatu (every Monday), the habitual hu- fits very naturally, emphasizing routine.
- somo – a lesson or class session, or sometimes a subject
- masomo – the plural of somo (lessons, studies), and also often used to mean studies in general.
Examples:
- Leo tuna somo la Kiswahili. – Today we have a Swahili lesson.
- Masomo yangu ni magumu. – My studies are difficult.
- Hili ni somo la tatu. – This is the third lesson.
In the sentence mwalimu huanza somo…, somo refers to the class/lesson the teacher is starting.
Kwa kurudia is a common structure: kwa + infinitive, which often means “by (doing), by means of (doing)”.
- huanza somo kwa kurudia msamiati…
→ “begins the lesson by reviewing the vocabulary…”
If you say:
- mwalimu huanza kurudia msamiati…
→ “the teacher begins to review the vocabulary…”
This second version slightly shifts the focus: it sounds more like “he/she starts the act of reviewing” rather than “he/she starts the lesson by reviewing.”
So:
- huanza somo kwa kurudia… – starts the lesson by doing X.
- huanza kurudia… – starts to do X.
Both are grammatical, but they don’t emphasize the same thing.
Kurudia is the infinitive form of the verb -rudia, which means to repeat / to review / to go back over (something).
- ku- is the infinitive prefix: ku-
- rudia → kurudia.
- In many contexts, this corresponds to English “to …” or “-ing”:
- kurudia msamiati – to review/repeat the vocabulary / reviewing the vocabulary.
But ku- doesn’t work exactly like English “to”:
- It also turns verbs into verbal nouns:
- kula – to eat / eating
- kulala ni muhimu. – Sleeping is important.
So kurudia here is “to review” but also “the act of reviewing,” depending on how you translate it.
Msamiati means vocabulary, usually as a set/list of words (e.g., vocabulary for a chapter, week, or topic).
- It’s treated as a noun (class 3 in most descriptions), and it does have a plural:
- msamiati – a vocabulary (set/list of words)
- misamiati – vocabularies (different sets/lists)
In practice, people often use msamiati much like English uses “vocabulary”:
- msamiati wa Kiswahili – Swahili vocabulary
- msamiati wa wiki iliyopita – the vocabulary from last week
Even if you don’t use the plural much, it’s useful to know it exists: misamiati.
Wa is the possessive/“of” connector that links two nouns: “X of Y”.
The pattern is:
[head noun] + [connector agreeing with head] + [noun 2]
Here:
- Head noun: msamiati (class 3)
- Connector for class 3: wa
- Noun 2: wiki iliyopita (last week)
So:
- msamiati wa wiki iliyopita
→ literally: “vocabulary of the week that passed”
→ natural English: “the vocabulary from last week / last week’s vocabulary”
Other examples with wa:
- mti wa embe – mango tree (tree of mango)
- msamiati wa somo hili – the vocabulary of this lesson
The choice of wa / ya / la / cha / za / etc. depends on the noun class of the head noun, not on the second noun.
Wiki iliyopita = wiki (week) + iliyo- (class‑9 relative marker for “which/that”) + pita (pass → “passed”).
So it literally means “the week that passed” → “last week.”
- wiki is in noun class 9, which takes i- for agreement.
- The relative form for past with class 9 is iliyo-.
- wiki iliyopita – the week that passed
- siku iliyopita – the day that passed / yesterday (in some contexts)
Uliopita would agree with a class 11 or 14 noun (or sometimes class 3/1 in colloquial speech), so it would not be correct with wiki in standard Swahili. You must match the relative marker to the noun class:
- mwaka uliopita – the year that passed (mwaka is class 3 → u-)
- wiki iliyopita – the week that passed (wiki is class 9 → i-)
Iliyopita is a relative form of the verb -pita (“to pass”), agreeing with a class‑9 noun:
- i- (class‑9 subject/relative prefix)
- -li- (past tense)
- -yo- (relative marker)
- pita (verb root)
So iliyopita ≈ “which has passed / that passed.”
You can use similar patterns with other nouns (changing the agreement to match the noun class):
- wiki iliyopita – the week that passed → last week
- siku iliyopita – the day that passed → the previous day
- mwaka uliopita – the year that passed → last year
- mwezi uliopita – the month that passed → last month
For “next” instead of “last,” you use other words, such as ijayo (“coming/next”):
- wiki ijayo – next week
- mwaka ujao – next year
The comma after Kila Jumatatu is mainly a stylistic/punctuation choice, not a strict grammatical requirement.
- Kila Jumatatu, mwalimu huanza somo…
- Kila Jumatatu mwalimu huanza somo…
Both are acceptable. The comma simply marks a pause after the introductory time phrase, similar to English:
- “Every Monday, the teacher begins the lesson…”
Many writers put a comma after fronted time expressions, but you will also see it omitted. The meaning doesn’t change.
Yes, that word order is also natural:
- Mwalimu huanza somo kila Jumatatu kwa kurudia msamiati wa wiki iliyopita.
Differences:
Kila Jumatatu, mwalimu huanza somo…
→ Puts extra emphasis on the time (“Every Monday, …”).Mwalimu huanza somo kila Jumatatu kwa kurudia…
→ Starts with the subject (“The teacher begins the lesson every Monday by…”).
Both are grammatically correct; Swahili allows some flexibility in placing time expressions. The choice is mostly about emphasis and style, not about correctness.