Maneno tuliyokariri jana yatatusaidia katika mtihani.

The sentence breaks down like this:

• Maneno tuliyokariri jana = the words we memorized yesterday
• yatatusaidia = will help us
• katika mtihani = in the exam / on the exam / during the exam

So the overall pattern is:

Subject + relative clause + main verb + prepositional phrase

More literally:

• Maneno = words
• tuliyokariri = that we memorized
• jana = yesterday
• yatatusaidia = they will help us
• katika mtihani = in the exam

Maneno is the plural form of neno.

• neno = word
• maneno = words

This noun belongs to the ji/ma noun class:

• Class 5 singular: often no visible prefix here, as in neno
• Class 6 plural: ma-, as in maneno

Because maneno is plural, other words in the sentence must agree with that noun class. That is why you see class-6 agreement in forms like:

• ya- in yatatusaidia
• -yo- in tuliyokariri

Tuliyokariri is a relative verb form meaning that we memorized or which we memorized.

It can be broken down like this:

• tu- = we
• -li- = past tense
• -yo- = relative marker agreeing with maneno
• kariri = memorize / learn by heart / recite from memory

So:

tu-li-yo-kariri = that we memorized

This is a very common Swahili way of making a phrase like the words that we memorized.

In Swahili, relative clauses are often built inside the verb, not with a separate word like English that or which.

So instead of saying something like:

• maneno ambayo tulikariri

this sentence uses the shorter built-in relative form:

• maneno tuliyokariri

Both can express the words that we memorized, but the form in your sentence is especially natural and compact.

The key part is the relative marker -yo-, which shows that the verb is describing maneno.

The relative marker must agree with the noun being described.

Here, the noun is maneno, which is in noun class 6. For this class, the relative marker is -yo-.

That is why you get:

• maneno tuliyokariri = the words that we memorized

If the noun belonged to another class, the relative marker would change.

So -yo- here is not random; it is there because maneno is a class-6 noun.

Yatatusaidia means they will help us, where they refers to maneno.

Breakdown:

• ya- = subject marker for noun class 6
• -ta- = future tense
• -tu- = us
• saidia = help

So:

ya-ta-tu-saidia = they will help us

Since maneno is plural class 6, Swahili uses ya- for agreement, not a separate word like English they.

This is a very common learner question.

In tuliyokariri:

• tu- is the subject marker
• it means we

So:

• tu-li-yo-kariri = we memorized

In yatatusaidia:

• -tu- is the object marker
• it means us

So:

• ya-ta-tu-saidia = they will help us

A useful rule:

• markers before the tense marker are often subject markers
• markers after the tense marker are often object markers

So position matters.

Katika means in, within, or sometimes during, depending on context.

Here, katika mtihani means something like:

• in the exam
• on the exam
• during the exam

In English, the most natural translation depends on the situation. If you mean the words will help you while taking the test, in the exam or during the exam works well. If you mean the words will appear as useful material on the test, English might say on the exam.

Katika is a normal and slightly formal/common written way to say in.

No. In this sentence, mtihani is just the normal noun meaning exam or test.

Its final -ni is part of the word itself, not the locative suffix.

So:

• mtihani = exam, test

This matters because learners sometimes think every noun ending in -ni must be locative, but that is not always true. Some nouns simply end that way as part of the borrowed or inherited word.

Jana means yesterday, and here it modifies the action we memorized.

So:

• tuliyokariri jana = that we memorized yesterday

This word order is very natural in Swahili. Time words often come after the verb or verb phrase they relate to.

So the sentence is not saying that the words are yesterday's words in some special possessive sense; it is saying that the memorizing happened yesterday.

Swahili usually does not use articles like English a, an, and the.

So maneno can mean:

• words
• the words

The exact meaning comes from context.

In this sentence, English naturally uses the words because the phrase is specific: the words we memorized yesterday. Swahili does not need a separate word for the to show that.

Yes. A fuller version could be:

Maneno ambayo tulikariri jana yatatusaidia katika mtihani.

That also means The words that we memorized yesterday will help us in the exam.

The difference is mainly style and structure:

• maneno tuliyokariri jana = shorter, tighter relative construction
• maneno ambayo tulikariri jana = more explicit, often easier for learners to recognize at first

Both are grammatical. The version in your sentence is very natural and efficient.

In Swahili, verb agreement is based on noun class, not on whether something is a person.

So even though maneno means words, the verb still has to agree with the noun class of maneno, which is class 6.

That is why the sentence uses:

• ya-ta-tu-saidia

The ya- does not mean the words are being treated as people. It simply shows correct grammatical agreement with maneno.