Learn Hardcore Swahili: Usiku, huwa hakuna magari mengi barabarani kijijini kwetu. - At night, there are usually not many cars on the road in our village.

This is still correct, but it sounds like a more neutral fact or a description of a specific situation. Huwa adds the idea that this is the normal pattern, not just something that happened once.

How does hakuna work? Why is there no separate word for are or there are?

In Swahili, the verb to be in the present tense is usually left out, and existence is often expressed with special words:

kuna = there is / there are
hakuna = there is no / there are no

So in your sentence:

hakuna magari mengi
literally = there-is-not many cars
natural English = there are not many cars or there aren’t many cars

There is no separate word for there or are. Hakuna does the whole job by itself.

Why is it just Usiku on its own for “at night”? Shouldn’t there be a preposition like kwa or katika?

Nouns for times of day (and some other time expressions) often act like adverbs by themselves in Swahili:

asubuhi – in the morning
mchana – in the daytime / at noon
jioni – in the evening
usiku – at night

So:

Usiku, huwa hakuna magari mengi…
literally = Night, (usually) there are not many cars…
natural English = At night, there are usually not many cars…

You could say kwa usiku or katika usiku in some contexts, but for simple time expressions like this, the bare noun (usiku) is the most natural.

Why is it magari mengi and not mengi magari? What’s the normal order for adjectives?

In Swahili the normal order is:

noun + adjective

not adjective + noun like in English.

magari mengi = many cars
- magari – cars
- mengi – many (plural of -ingi, agreeing with the ma- noun class)

Putting the adjective in front (mengi magari) is ungrammatical in normal speech. So you say:

watoto wadogo – small children
vitabu vipya – new books
magari mengi – many cars

What does the -ni at the end of barabarani and kijijini mean?

The ending -ni is a locative suffix. It usually means in / at / on depending on the noun:

barabara – road
barabarani – on the road, in the street
kijiji – village
kijijini – in the village

So, barabarani = on the road(s), and kijijini = in the village.
The exact English preposition (in, at, on) depends on the noun and on natural English, not on a change in the Swahili form.

What’s the difference between barabara and barabarani?

barabara is just the noun: road / street
- Example: Barabara hii ni mbaya. – This road is bad.
barabarani is locative: on the road, out on the street
- Example: Kuna watoto barabarani. – There are children on the road / in the street.

In your sentence:

magari mengi barabarani
= many cars on the road(s), i.e. driving around on the roads.

What does kijijini kwetu mean exactly, and how is it different from kijiji chetu?

Both are related to “our village”, but the nuance is different:

kijiji chetu
- kijiji – village
- chetu – our
  = our village (as a simple noun phrase)
kijijini kwetu
- kijijini – in the village
- kwetu – at our place / where we live / our home area
  ≈ in our village / in the village where we are from

Kijijini kwetu sounds a bit more like “in our home village / in our area”, with a stronger feeling of “where we belong,” not just any random village that we happen to own or be associated with.

Does kwetu always mean “in our village”, or can it mean other things?

Kwetu is more general than “in our village.” It is a locative pronoun meaning something like “at our place / with us / where we are”.

Depending on context, kwetu can mean:

at our home
in our country / region
in our family
at our workplace
in our village, if the context is about village life

Examples:

Karibu kwetu. – Welcome to our home / place.
Kwetu hatupiki chakula hiki. – Where we are from / In our place, we don’t cook this food.

In kijijini kwetu, the surrounding word kijijini tells you that here kwetu is specifically referring to our village.

Why are barabarani and kijijini kwetu next to each other? Is that like saying “on the road in our village”?

Yes. The structure is basically:

magari mengi [barabarani] [kijijini kwetu]
= many cars [on the road] [in our village]

Swahili can stack location phrases after a noun without extra words like which or that or where:

magari mengi barabarani kijijini kwetu
≈ many cars on the road(s) in our village
(i.e. the roads that are in our village)

You don’t need something like ambapo (where) here; just putting the locative phrases one after another is natural.

Could I say Usiku, huwa kuna magari machache barabarani kijijini kwetu instead? What’s the difference from huwa hakuna magari mengi?

Yes, you could say that, and it would be correct. The nuance is slightly different:

huwa hakuna magari mengi
literally: there usually are not many cars
– focuses on denying a large number; there are not many.
English feel: there usually aren’t many cars.
huwa kuna magari machache
literally: there usually are a few cars
– focuses on admitting the presence of a small number.
English feel: there are usually a few cars.

So:

huwa hakuna magari mengi – emphasizes that the roads are not busy.
huwa kuna magari machache – emphasizes that there are some, just not many.

Can I move usiku to another place in the sentence, like in English?

Yes, time expressions like usiku are quite flexible. You’ll most commonly see them at the beginning, but other positions are possible:

Usiku, huwa hakuna magari mengi barabarani kijijini kwetu.
Huwa hakuna magari mengi usiku barabarani kijijini kwetu.
Huwa usiku hakuna magari mengi barabarani kijijini kwetu. (also possible, though slightly heavier)

Putting Usiku at the start is very natural and emphasizes the time first, much like English “At night, …”.

If I want to talk about daytime instead, do I just change Usiku?

Yes, you can simply replace Usiku with another time word:

Mchana, huwa hakuna magari mengi barabarani kijijini kwetu.
– In the daytime / at noon, there are usually not many cars…
Asubuhi, huwa hakuna magari mengi…
– In the morning, there are usually not many cars…
Jioni, huwa hakuna magari mengi…
– In the evening, there are usually not many cars…

The rest of the structure stays the same.