Learn Hardcore Swahili: Dirisha la chumba chetu lilifungwa na mwalimu kabla ya mvua kuanza. - The window of our room was closed by the teacher before the rain started.

dirisha la chumba = the window of the room
If the head noun were mvua (class 9), you would use ya:
- mvua ya jana = the rain of yesterday / yesterday’s rain

Using ya with dirisha (dirisha ya…) would break noun-class agreement and be ungrammatical in standard Swahili.

Why is it chumba chetu and not chumba yetu for “our room”?

Possessive words like -angu, -ako, -etu, -ao also agree with the noun class of the noun they describe.

chumba (room) is a class 7 noun (plural: vyumba, class 8).
The class 7 agreement prefix for possessives is ch-, so “our” becomes chetu.

Compare:

mtoto wetu (our child) – mtoto is class 1 → wetu
dirisha letu (our window) – dirisha class 5 → letu
chumba chetu (our room) – chumba class 7 → chetu
vyumba vyetu (our rooms) – vyumba class 8 → vyetu
mvua yetu (our rain) – mvua class 9 → yetu

So chumba yetu is wrong in standard Swahili because the possessive does not match the noun class.

What exactly does lilifungwa mean, and how is it built?

lilifungwa is a passive past verb form. It breaks down as:

li- = subject prefix for class 5 (agreeing with dirisha)
-li- = past tense marker
-fung- = verb root meaning “close, shut, lock”
-w- = passive suffix
-a = final vowel

So lilifungwa literally means:

“it (class‑5 thing) was closed” or “it got closed”.

In context:

Dirisha la chumba chetu lilifungwa…
= “The window of our room was closed…”

How would this sentence look in active voice instead of passive?

In active voice, you make mwalimu the grammatical subject and use the active verb alifunga (“closed”):

Mwalimu alifunga dirisha la chumba chetu kabla ya mvua kuanza.
= “The teacher closed the window of our room before the rain started.”

The original passive version:

Dirisha la chumba chetu lilifungwa na mwalimu kabla ya mvua kuanza.
= “The window of our room was closed by the teacher before the rain started.”

Both are correct; the passive version focuses on the window, while the active version focuses on the teacher.

In this sentence, does na mwalimu mean “by the teacher” or “with the teacher”? What does na do here?

Here na marks the agent of a passive verb, so it means “by”:

… lilifungwa na mwalimu …
= “… was closed by the teacher …”

The word na is very flexible in Swahili and can mean:

and:
- Juma na Asha = Juma and Asha
with (in the sense of “together with”):
- Ninaenda na rafiki yangu = I’m going with my friend
with/by (instrument or agent):
- Aliandika na kalamu = He wrote with a pen
- In passives: lilifungwa na mwalimu = closed by the teacher

Context tells you which meaning fits. With a passive verb like lilifungwa, na is naturally understood as “by”.

Why is it kabla ya mvua kuanza and not something like kabla mvua ilianza for “before the rain started”?

After kabla ya (“before”), Swahili commonly uses an infinitive phrase:

kabla ya
- [noun]
  - ku- + verb
    → “before [noun] [verb]-ing / before the [noun] starts/does X”

So:

kabla ya mvua kuanza
literally: “before the rain to‑start”
meaning: “before the rain started / before the start of the rain”

The form *kabla mvua ilianza is not grammatical. If you want a full clause with a conjugated verb after kabla, you change the construction:

kabla mvua haijaanza = before the rain has started / before it starts
kabla haijaanza mvua (less common word order)

So for this sentence, kabla ya mvua kuanza is the natural way to say “before the rain started.”

Can I also say kabla mvua haijaanza instead of kabla ya mvua kuanza? Is there any difference?

Yes, you can. Both are correct, but they have a slightly different structure and feel:

kabla ya mvua kuanza
- uses an infinitive phrase: mvua kuanza (“the rain’s starting”)
- more like “before the rain started / before the start of the rain”
- stylistically a bit more neutral and very common.
kabla mvua haijaanza
- uses a full clause with a negative perfect: haijaanza (“has not yet started”)
- literally: “before the rain has not-yet started”
- often feels slightly more explicit about the idea of “not yet”.

In everyday speech and writing, kabla ya mvua kuanza is very common and perfectly natural in this sentence.

There is no separate word for “the” in this sentence. How do we know it means the window, not a window?

Swahili does not have words like English “a/an” or “the”. Nouns are usually bare, and definiteness is understood from context and from what else is in the phrase.

In dirisha la chumba chetu:

We have a specific room (our room).
We talk about the window of that specific room.

Because it is attached to our room, listeners naturally interpret it as a specific, known window – usually translated as “the window of our room”.

If the context were different, the same phrase could sometimes be translated as “a window of our room”, but English forces you to choose a or the while Swahili does not.

Why doesn’t kuanza agree with mvua here? Why not kabla ya mvua ilianza or kabla ya mvua ikaanza?

In kabla ya mvua kuanza, kuanza is an infinitive, not a normal finite verb. It behaves like a verbal noun, so it:

keeps the ku-,
does not take a subject prefix (like i- for mvua),
and follows kabla ya to form the phrase “before [the rain] starting”.

So:

kabla ya mvua kuanza = before the rain starting → before the rain started

If you want mvua with a fully conjugated verb, you must change the whole structure:

kabla mvua haijaanza – before the rain has started / before it starts
or just: mvua ilianza – the rain started (as a normal main clause)

Mixing ya + noun + finite verb as in *kabla ya mvua ilianza is not allowed in standard Swahili.

Can I move kabla ya mvua kuanza to the beginning of the sentence?

Yes. Time expressions like kabla ya mvua kuanza are quite flexible in Swahili word order.

You can say:

Dirisha la chumba chetu lilifungwa na mwalimu kabla ya mvua kuanza.
(neutral word order)

Kabla ya mvua kuanza, dirisha la chumba chetu lilifungwa na mwalimu.
(time phrase first, for emphasis on when it happened)

Both are correct. In writing, a comma after the introductory phrase is common but not required in Swahili.