Mtihani wa leo umeandikwa kwa uangalifu na walimu wawili.

Mtihani wa leo umeandikwa kwa uangalifu na walimu wawili.

• Mtihani – exam / test
• wa – of (linking word for possession/association, agreeing with mtihani)

• leo – today
  → Mtihani wa leo – today’s exam / the exam of today

• u- (in umeandikwa) – subject prefix for class 3 nouns like mtihani
• -me- – perfect tense marker (has/have done)
• -andik- – write
• -w- – passive marker

• -a – final vowel
  → umeandikwa – has been written / was written

• kwa – with / in (used to form adverbial expressions)

• uangalifu – carefulness / care
  → kwa uangalifu – carefully (literally: with carefulness)

• na – by (in a passive), also “and” in other contexts
• walimu – teachers (plural of mwalimu)
• wawili – two (for people in this noun class)
  → na walimu wawili – by two teachers

Whole: Mtihani wa leo umeandikwa kwa uangalifu na walimu wawili.
→ Today’s exam has been written carefully by two teachers.

The choice between wa and ya is about noun class agreement.

• Mtihani belongs to noun class 3/4 (m/mi).
• For this class, the associative “of” is wa (singular) and ya (plural).

So:

• mtihani wa leo – today’s exam (singular, class 3 → wa)
• mitihani ya leo – today’s exams (plural, class 4 → ya)

You use wa because you’re talking about one exam (mtihani), not many exams (mitihani).

umeandikwa is a passive perfect verb form:

• u- – subject prefix for class 3 (mtihani → it)
• -me- – perfect tense/aspect (“has/have already done”)
• -andik- – write
• -w- – passive marker
• -a – final vowel

So umeandikwa literally is:

it (class 3) has been written

In natural English:

• has been written (present perfect passive)
• often translated also as was written if the context is recent or clearly past.

Two things change: the tense marker and the aspect.

1. umeandikwa

   • u- – subject prefix (class 3: mtihani)
   • -me- – perfect
   • -andikw- – be written
     → has been written / was written (recently)
     It focuses on the result: the exam is now in a written state.

2. uliandikwa

   • u- – subject prefix (class 3)
   • -li- – simple past
   • -andikw- – be written
     → was written (simple past event, no special focus on the present result)

In context:

• Mtihani wa leo umeandikwa kwa uangalifu…
  → Suggests the exam is (now) ready, already written.

• Mtihani wa jana uliandikwa kwa uangalifu…
  → Purely about what happened yesterday, no emphasis on the current state.

Here, na means “by” because the verb is in the passive.

• In passive sentences, na + agent often means “by + agent”:

  • Mtihani umeandikwa na walimu wawili.
    → The exam has been written by two teachers.

• In many other contexts, na means “and” or “with”:

  • mwalimu na mwanafunzi – a teacher and a student
  • ninaenda na rafiki yangu – I’m going with my friend

So in …umeandikwa … na walimu wawili, na = by.

Swahili often forms adverb-like expressions with kwa + noun.

• angalifu is an adjective: careful
• uangalifu (with u-) is the abstract noun: care / carefulness
• kwa uangalifu literally: with carefulness → adverbial “carefully”

This is a common pattern:

• pole (sorry, gentle) → upole (gentleness) → kwa upole – gently
• hakika (sure) → uhakika (certainty) → kwa uhakika – certainly, confidently

So kwa uangalifu is the natural way to say “carefully”.

This is noun class agreement in the people class (class 1/2).

• mwalimu – teacher (singular, class 1)
• walimu – teachers (plural, class 2)

Numbers that count people in this class also take wa- in the plural:

• mwalimu mmoja – one teacher
• walimu wawili – two teachers
• walimu watatu – three teachers
• walimu wanne – four teachers

So walimu wawili is:

• walimu (plural noun, class 2)
• wawili (plural form of “two” agreeing with class 2)

The wa- on wawili agrees with the wa- in walimu.

Yes, that order is also correct and natural:

• Mtihani wa leo umeandikwa kwa uangalifu na walimu wawili.
• Mtihani wa leo umeandikwa na walimu wawili kwa uangalifu.

Both mean essentially the same thing.

Subtle differences in focus:

• …kwa uangalifu na walimu wawili: the adverbial “carefully” comes a bit earlier, so the manner may feel slightly more foregrounded.
• …na walimu wawili kwa uangalifu: you hear “by two teachers” first, then how they did it.

In normal conversation, either is fine; context and intonation usually show what is being emphasized.

Swahili usually doesn’t use separate subject pronouns like English does. Instead, the subject is built into the verb prefix.

• English: It has been written.
• Swahili: umeandikwa.
  
  • u- already means “it” (referring to mtihani in class 3).

So you don’t say something like “yeye mtihani umeandikwa”; that would be wrong. The subject is understood through the class prefix u- and the context.

Swahili has no articles equivalent to English “the / a / an”. Context usually tells you whether something is definite or indefinite.

• Mtihani wa leo can be translated as:
  • “today’s exam”
  • or “the exam today”

Both are fine in English; the Swahili form is literally “exam of today”.
Because you’re specifying “of today”, it naturally feels definite, like “the” in English, not just “an exam”.