Learn Hardcore Swahili: Bango la sherehe litatundikwa ukutani leo jioni. - The banner for the celebration will be hung on the wall this evening.

In this sentence, because it’s for a sherehe (a party/celebration) and is being hung on a wall, “poster” or “banner” would be the most natural English equivalents. The Swahili word itself doesn’t force you to choose one English term; the context does.

What does la in bango la sherehe mean, and why la and not something else?

La is a possessive / “of” marker that agrees with the noun class of bango.

Bango belongs to noun class 5 (singular), whose possessive marker is -la.
So bango la sherehe literally is “banner of (the) party” → “party banner/poster”.

If bango were plural (mabango, class 6), the phrase would change:

mabango ya sherehe = party banners/posters

So:

Class 5 singular → bango la …
Class 6 plural → mabango ya …

The choice of la is not about the meaning of sherehe; it’s about the class of bango.

How is litatundikwa formed? Can you break it down?

Yes. Litatundikwa is the future passive form of the verb tundika (“to hang [something] up”).

Breakdown:

li- = subject marker for noun class 5 (refers to bango)
-ta- = future tense marker (“will”)
tundik- = verb root meaning “hang (something up)”
-w- = passive marker (often written/realized together with the final vowel)
-a = final vowel

Put together: li-ta-tundik-w-a → litatundikwa = “it will be hung (up)”.

So bango la sherehe litatundikwa… = “the party banner/poster will be hung…”.

Why is the verb passive (litatundikwa) instead of an active form?

Swahili often uses the passive when:

The doer of the action is not important, not specified, or obvious from context.
The focus is on what happens to the object.

Here, the important thing is that the bango ends up on the wall this evening. Who exactly hangs it (e.g. “the staff”, “the organizers”) is not central.

An active version would be:

Wafanyakazi watatundika bango la sherehe ukutani leo jioni.
- “The workers will hang the party banner on the wall this evening.”

But if you don’t care who does it, the passive bango la sherehe litatundikwa… is natural and elegant in Swahili.

What is the difference between tundika and tundikwa?

Tundika = active form: “to hang (something) up”
- Nitatundika bango. = “I will hang up the banner.”
Tundikwa = passive form of the same verb: “to be hung (up)”
- Bango litatundikwa. = “The banner will be hung (up).”

So:

tundika – someone does the hanging
tundikwa – something undergoes the action of being hung

Why is it ukutani and not just ukuta? What does the -ni do?

Ukuta means “wall” (as a noun).

Adding -ni to many location nouns makes a locative form: “in/at/on [that place]”. So:

ukuta = wall
ukuta + -ni → ukutani = at the wall / on the wall / by the wall

In this context (hanging a banner), ukutani naturally means “on the wall”.

This -ni locative is very common:

meza → mezani = at/on the table
kanisa → kanisani = at church
shule → shuleni = at school

So litatundikwa ukutani literally: “it will be hung at/on the wall”.

Could you also say kwenye ukuta instead of ukutani? Is there a difference?

Yes, you can say kwenye ukuta, and it would still be correct:

Bango la sherehe litatundikwa kwenye ukuta leo jioni.

Difference in feel:

ukutani
- Short, idiomatic, and very natural.
- Uses the old locative suffix -ni.
kwenye ukuta
- Uses the preposition kwenye, roughly “in/at/on”.
- Also common and clear, especially in more colloquial speech.

In many cases, ukutani and kwenye ukuta are interchangeable. Here, ukutani sounds a bit more compact and slightly more “standard textbook” style, but both are fine.

Why is leo jioni at the end of the sentence? Could it go somewhere else?

Time expressions in Swahili are often placed near the end of the sentence, especially in neutral word order:

Bango la sherehe litatundikwa ukutani leo jioni.

You can move it, particularly to the beginning, for emphasis or style:

Leo jioni, bango la sherehe litatundikwa ukutani.

Both are correct.

General patterns:

Neutral / common: [Subject] [Verb] [Place] [Time]
Emphatic time: [Time] [Subject] [Verb] [Place]

Putting leo jioni in the middle (e.g. after the verb but before ukutani) is less common but not impossible; it just sounds a bit less smooth:

Bango la sherehe litatundikwa leo jioni ukutani. (understandable, but not the most natural).

How does bango agree with litatundikwa? What noun class is involved?

Bango is in noun class 5 (its plural mabango is in class 6).

For class 5:

Subject marker (SM) in present: li-
Subject marker in future: li- plus -ta- for future tense

So:

Bango linaanguka. = “The banner is falling.” (li- present)
Bango litaanguka. = “The banner will fall.” (li-
- -ta-)
Bango litatundikwa. = “The banner will be hung.”

In litatundikwa, the li- at the beginning is agreeing with bango. That is why it’s li-, not ki-, u-, a-, etc. Noun class agreement controls that choice.

What exactly does leo jioni mean? Is it “today evening” or “this evening”?

Literally, leo = “today” and jioni = “evening”.

Combined, leo jioni is best translated as “this evening” in natural English. It specifies:

Not just “sometime this evening in general”, but specifically the evening of today.

You could also say simply:

Jioni = “in the evening” (without specifying which day)

For example:

Tutakutana jioni. = “We’ll meet in the evening.”
Tutakutana leo jioni. = “We’ll meet this evening (today).”

So in your sentence, leo jioni narrows it down to this evening (today).

How would I say “The party banner will not be hung on the wall this evening”?

To make the verb negative in the future, Swahili uses a negative subject marker and drops -ta-. For class 5 (bango), the negative subject marker is hali-.

So:

Bango la sherehe halitatundikwa ukutani leo jioni.

Breakdown:

ha- = negative
-li- = class 5 subject
-tundikwa = passive verb stem (“be hung up”)

Together hali-…-a → “will not …” for a class 5 subject. Thus the full sentence means:

“The party banner will not be hung on the wall this evening.”