Breakdown of Tulipofika kwenye bwawa, mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha.
Questions & Answers about Tulipofika kwenye bwawa, mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha.
Tulipofika can be broken down like this:
- tu- = we (subject prefix, 1st person plural)
- -li- = past tense marker
- -po- = a relative marker meaning when / at the time that or at the place where
- fika = arrive
So tulipofika literally means “when we arrived” or “at the time we arrived”, not just “we arrived”. The -po- turns it into a kind of “when”-clause all by itself, so you don’t need to add a separate word for “when”.
In Swahili, “when”-clauses are often formed by adding a relative marker like -po-, -ki-, or -cho- inside the verb, instead of using a separate word like “when”.
- Tulipofika already means “when we arrived”.
- If you said Tulifika, that would mean simply “we arrived”.
So you don’t say Wakati tulifika… here (though it’s not totally impossible style‑wise); tulipofika itself carries the “when” meaning thanks to -po-.
- Tulifika = we arrived (simple past statement)
- Tulipofika = when we arrived / by the time we arrived (introduces a time clause)
The added -po- makes the verb depend on another event, usually in the main clause. In this sentence:
- Tulipofika kwenye bwawa… = When we arrived at the pond…
- …mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha. = …it had started to rain.
So tulipofika is not just describing a past action; it is also setting the time frame for what follows.
Kwenye is a common preposition meaning roughly “at / in / on / to (a place)”.
- kwenye bwawa = at the pond / in the pond
- bwawani = in/at the pond as well, but formed with the locative ending -ni.
Differences:
- kwenye bwawa is very common in everyday speech, fairly neutral and clear.
- bwawani is a bit more compact and sometimes a little more formal or “bookish”-sounding, though both are correct and used.
You could say:
- Tulipofika kwenye bwawa…
- Tulipofika bwawani…
Both would be understood as “When we arrived at the pond…”, with only a small style difference.
Bwawa basically means a body of still water that is contained. It can translate as:
- pond
- pool
- small dam / reservoir
The exact English word depends on context:
- A natural small body of still water → often translated as pond.
- A man-made water reservoir or dam → dam or reservoir.
In many teaching examples, bwawa is glossed as pond, but you should keep in mind it’s a bit broader.
In Swahili, mvua (rain) behaves like a normal noun and can be the grammatical subject of a sentence, just like mtu (person) or gari (car).
So you say:
- Mvua inanyesha. = It is raining. (literally “Rain is falling.”)
In English, we use the dummy subject “it” (“it is raining”), but in Swahili they simply use mvua as the subject:
- Mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha. = literally “Rain had started to fall.” → natural English: “It had started to rain.”
This part is a compound past perfect structure:
- mvua = rain (subject, class 9)
- ilikuwa = was / had been (past tense of kuwa, “to be”)
- i- = subject prefix for class 9 (mvua)
- -li- = past tense
- -kuwa = to be
- imeanza = has started / had started
- i- = class 9 subject agreement
- -me- = perfect aspect marker (has / have done)
- -anza = to begin
- kunyesha = to rain / to fall (as rain) (infinitive)
Putting it together:
- mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha
= literally “the rain was having-begun to rain”,
but naturally: “it had started to rain.”
The combination ilikuwa + imeanza gives a past-before-past feeling: by the time something else happened, the rain had already started.
You can say Mvua ilianza kunyesha, and it means “It started to rain.”
However, the meaning and timing are slightly different:
Mvua ilianza kunyesha.
→ simple past: “It started to rain (then).”
→ often suggests the start of the rain is the main past event you’re talking about.Mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha.
→ past perfect: “It had started to rain.”
→ used to say the rain had already started before another past event.
In our sentence:
- Tulipofika kwenye bwawa, mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha.
→ When we arrived at the pond, it had started to rain (already).
So ilikuwa imeanza clearly marks that the starting of the rain was earlier than the arrival.
They line up quite closely:
- English: had started = past perfect (an action completed before another past reference point).
- Swahili: ilikuwa imeanza = “was/had been + has-started”, functioning together as a past perfect.
Timeline:
- Event A: rain begins.
- Event B: we arrive at the pond.
We want to say A happened before B, even though both are in the past.
- English: When we arrived at the pond, it had started to rain.
- Swahili: Tulipofika kwenye bwawa, mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha.
So you can think of ilikuwa imeanza as Swahili’s way of building something very similar to the English past perfect.
Kunyesha is the infinitive “to rain / to fall (as rain)”:
- -nyesha = (of rain) to fall
- ku-nyesha = to rain
Swahili commonly uses mvua + (ku)nyesha together:
- Mvua inanyesha. = It is raining.
- Mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha. = It had started to rain.
Even though mvua already means “rain”, you still use a verb to say what the rain is doing, just like in English: we don’t say just “Rain started”, we say “It started to rain”. In Swahili it’s literally “Rain started to rain/fall.”
Mvua belongs to noun class 9/10 in Swahili. The subject agreement prefix for class 9/10 (singular) is i-.
So:
- mvua → takes subject prefix i- in the verb.
- ilikuwa = i- (class 9 subject) + -li- (past) + -kuwa (be).
- imeanza = i- (class 9 subject) + -me- (perfect) + -anza (begin).
This is why you do mvua ilianza, mvua imeanza, mvua inaanza, etc. The i- is agreement with mvua.
Yes, you can say:
- Tulipofika kwenye bwawa, mvua ilianza kunyesha.
This would usually be understood as:
- “When we arrived at the pond, it started to rain (right then / at that moment).”
Subtle difference:
- mvua ilianza kunyesha → the starting of the rain coincides with, or is very close to, the moment of arrival.
- mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha → the rain had already started before or by the time you arrived; maybe you’re arriving into the rain that has just begun.
Context could blur that difference, but the sentence with ilikuwa imeanza more strongly suggests the rain was already in progress when you arrived.
The comma is mainly punctuation, but it reflects the structure:
- Tulipofika kwenye bwawa = dependent time clause (“When we arrived at the pond”)
- mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha = main clause (“it had started to rain”)
Swahili doesn’t rely on the comma to make the grammar work (that comes from the verb markers like -po-), but in writing it helps separate the “when”-clause from the main clause, just like in English:
- “When we arrived at the pond, it had started to rain.”
Yes, you can put the main clause first and the tulipofika clause after it:
- Mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha tulipofika kwenye bwawa.
This still means:
- “It had started to rain when we arrived at the pond.”
The meaning is essentially the same; you’re just changing the order of clauses. In both orders, the -po- inside tulipofika marks it as the “when” phrase.
Swahili generally does not use separate words for “a / an / the”. Nouns like bwawa and mvua can be understood as a pond / the pond or rain / the rain, depending on context.
In:
- Tulipofika kwenye bwawa, mvua ilikuwa imeanza kunyesha.
an English speaker would naturally translate:
- “When we arrived at the pond, it had started to rain.”
We choose “the pond” instead of “a pond” because:
- It feels like a specific place that the speakers had in mind.
- Often, context in the wider story clarifies whether it’s specific or not.
Swahili leaves that specificity to context instead of marking it with articles.