Learn Hardcore Swahili: Chakula chote tulichopika jana kilimalizika ndani ya saa moja. - All the food we cooked yesterday was finished within an hour.

chakula is in noun class 7 (the ki-/vi- class).
In class 7, ote takes the form chote.
yote is used with other classes, for example:
- pesa yote – all the money (class 9)
- mifuko yote – all the bags (class 4)
- maji yote – all the water (class 6)

So the correct agreement is:

chakula chote – all the food / the whole amount of food

Using chakula yote would sound ungrammatical to a native speaker because the agreement is wrong for that noun class.

What nuance does chote add? Why not just say chakula tulichopika jana?

Without chote, chakula tulichopika jana just means “the food we cooked yesterday,” with no explicit idea of “all of it.”

Adding chote makes it clear that:

You are talking about the entire quantity of the food you cooked, not just some of it.
In English the nuance is “all the food we cooked yesterday” or “the whole lot of food we cooked yesterday.”

So:

Chakula tulichopika jana kilimalizika…
→ The food we cooked yesterday was finished… (maybe all of it, maybe most of it – it’s not specified)
Chakula chote tulichopika jana kilimalizika…
→ All the food we cooked yesterday was finished…

How is tulichopika built, and what does each part mean?

tulichopika is a relative verb form. It can be broken down as:

tuli- = we (past)
- tu- = “we”
- -li- = past tense marker
-cho- = relative marker for class 7 (referring back to chakula)
-pika = verb root “cook”

So tulichopika literally means:

“which we cooked”

Putting it back in the sentence:

chakula chote tulichopika jana
= “all the food which we cooked yesterday”

What exactly is the role of -cho- in tulichopika?

-cho- is a relative marker that:

Refers back to chakula (a class 7 noun).
Tells you the clause is a relative clause: “which/that …”

Because chakula is class 7, the relative marker is -cho-. If the noun were plural vyakula (class 8), the marker would change:

vyakula vyote tulivyopika jana…
- -vyo- = relative marker for class 8

So:

chakula chote tulichopika jana
= “all the food that we cooked yesterday”
-cho- is basically doing the job of English “that/which” and at the same time agreeing with the noun class.

Could I say chakula chote ambacho tulipika jana instead of chakula chote tulichopika jana?

Yes, that is grammatically correct:

chakula chote ambacho tulipika jana kilimalizika…

Here:

ambacho = “which/that” (for a class 7 noun)
tulipika = normal past tense “we cooked”

However, in everyday speech, Swahili strongly prefers the relative marker inside the verb:

tulichopika (with -cho-) is more natural and more common than ambacho tulipika.

So both are correct, but:

Chakula chote tulichopika jana… = very natural, typical spoken Swahili.
Chakula chote ambacho tulipika jana… = correct, but sounds more formal or bookish in many contexts.

What is the difference between kilimalizika and tulimaliza? Could I say tulimaliza chakula chote…?

Yes, you could say tulimaliza chakula chote tulichopika jana…, but it changes the perspective.

kilimalizika (from -malizika)
- Intransitive / “middle” meaning: “to be finished, to get used up, to run out.”
- Subject: the thing that gets finished.
- Chakula chote … kilimalizika
  → “All the food … was finished / got used up.”
tulimaliza (from -maliza)
- Transitive: “to finish (something).”
- Subject: the people doing the finishing.
- Tulimaliza chakula chote tulichopika jana…
  → “We finished all the food we cooked yesterday…”

So:

kilimalizika focuses on the result for the food (“it ended / ran out”).
tulimaliza focuses on who finished it (“we finished it”).

Both are fine; they just highlight different things.

What is the difference between kilimalizika and kiliisha?

Both can mean that something came to an end or was used up:

kiliisha – from kuisha, “to end, be over, be used up”
kilimalizika – from kumalizika, “to be finished off, get completely used up”

Nuance:

kuisha is very general: something ends, is over, or runs out.
kumalizika often carries a stronger sense of complete exhaustion or finishing.

In most everyday contexts, for food running out, you can use either:

Chakula chote tulichopika jana kiliisha ndani ya saa moja.
Chakula chote tulichopika jana kilimalizika ndani ya saa moja.

Both would be understood as “All the food we cooked yesterday was finished within an hour.”

Why does the verb start with ki- (kilimalizika) but the noun is chakula? Why not chalimalizika?

It’s the same noun class, but it shows up in different ways:

chakula is class 7. The noun prefix for class 7 can appear as:
- ki-: e.g. kitabu (book)
- ch- / cha-: e.g. chakula (food)

On the verb, the subject marker for class 7 is always ki-, not cha-:

chakula → ki- on the verb:
- Chakula chote… kilimalizika… (not chalimalizika)

So:

On nouns: the prefix can surface as ki- or cha- depending on the word.
On verbs: class 7 always uses ki- as the subject marker.

That’s why we say kilimalizika, not chalimalizika.

Why is there no separate word for “it” before kilimalizika, like “it was finished”?

In Swahili, the subject is built into the verb as a prefix, so you normally don’t need a separate pronoun.

In kilimalizika:

ki- = subject marker for class 7, referring back to chakula
There is no need to add an extra “it.”

Swahili generally avoids redundant subject pronouns. For example:

Tulipika chakula. – We cooked food.
(You don’t say sisi tulipika chakula unless you want to emphasize we.)

Similarly, Chakula chote… kilimalizika… already contains the idea of “it” in ki-.

What does ndani ya saa moja literally mean, and why is it used for time?

Literally:

ndani = inside
ya = of
saa moja = one hour

So the literal meaning is “inside of one hour”, which matches the English idea of:

“within one hour”
“in under an hour”

In time expressions:

ndani ya X = within X (the action is completed before X elapses)
- ndani ya saa moja – within an hour
- ndani ya siku tatu – within three days

Contrast:

kwa saa moja – for one hour (focus on duration, not deadline)
- Tulila kwa saa moja. – We ate for one hour.

In this sentence, ndani ya saa moja fits because the food was all gone before one hour had passed.

Does saa moja here mean “one o’clock” or “one hour”?

Here it clearly means “one hour”, because it’s in a duration phrase with ndani ya (“within”).

ndani ya saa moja → “within one hour”

Swahili saa can mean both “o’clock” and “hour,” but:

With ndani ya / kwa (+ number), it usually refers to duration:
- ndani ya saa mbili – within two hours
- kwa saa tatu – for three hours

“To say a clock time” you normally give more context (and in East Africa often use the Swahili clock system, e.g. saa saba mchana, etc.), which doesn’t fit this pattern.

Can I move jana elsewhere in the sentence, and does that change the meaning?

Yes, the position of jana affects what it modifies.

Original:

Chakula chote tulichopika jana kilimalizika ndani ya saa moja.
→ “All the food that we cooked yesterday was finished within an hour.”

Here jana belongs to the verb tulichopika (“we cooked”), so it says when it was cooked.

If you move jana after kilimalizika:

Chakula chote tulichopika kilimalizika jana ndani ya saa moja.
→ “All the food we cooked was finished yesterday within an hour.”

Now jana modifies kilimalizika (“was finished”), so it says when it was finished, not when it was cooked.

You can also front it:

Jana, chakula chote tulichopika kilimalizika ndani ya saa moja.
→ “Yesterday, all the food we cooked was finished within an hour.”
(Here jana is a general time frame for the whole event.)

So, yes, moving jana can change the focus of the time reference.

Could I leave out chote and just say Chakula tulichopika jana kilimalizika ndani ya saa moja?

Yes, that sentence is grammatically correct:

Chakula tulichopika jana kilimalizika ndani ya saa moja.

However, the nuance changes:

With chote: clearly all the food we cooked was finished.
Without chote: simply “The food we cooked yesterday was finished…”, with no explicit emphasis on “all of it.”

In many real-life situations, listeners might still infer that all of it was finished from context, but chote makes that meaning explicit and emphatic.

How would this sentence look in the plural, like “All the dishes we cooked yesterday were finished within an hour”?

If you treat the food as multiple dishes or kinds of food (plural), you move to class 8:

Vyakula vyote tulivyopika jana vilimalizika ndani ya saa moja.

Changes compared to the singular:

chakula → vyakula (class 7 → class 8)
chote → vyote (agreement with class 8)
tulichopika → tulivyopika
- -cho- (class 7 relative) → -vyo- (class 8 relative)
kilimalizika → vilimalizika
- ki- (class 7 subject marker) → vi- (class 8 subject marker)

Meaning: “All the foods / all the dishes we cooked yesterday were finished within an hour.”