Asha alimpigia dada yake simu kutoka famasi ili aulize kama anahitaji dawa ya meno.

alimpigia can be broken down like this:

• a- = he/she
• -li- = past tense
• -m- = him/her
• -pigia = call/phone someone here, from the verb piga

So alimpigia means she called him/her or more literally she phoned him/her.

In this sentence, the a- refers to Asha, and the -m- refers to her sister.

Yes, in a way it is repeating it, and that is normal in Swahili.

The -m- inside the verb is an object marker, and dada yake names the person explicitly. Swahili often does this when the object is:

• a specific person
• already known
• important in the sentence

So alimpigia dada yake simu is very natural.

A rough English comparison would be something like Her sister, she called her, although English does not normally say it that way.

This is a fixed expression.

• kupiga simu = to make a phone call
• kumpigia mtu simu = to call someone

So even though piga often literally means hit/strike, in the expression piga simu it means make a call.

The form pigia adds the idea of doing the action to/for someone, so alimpigia dada yake simu means she called her sister.

yake can mean his, her, or sometimes its, depending on context.

Swahili does not normally mark gender the way English does. So:

• dada yake = his sister or her sister

Here, because the sentence is about Asha, the natural translation is her sister.

This is an important difference from English: Swahili often leaves gender to context.

Here kutoka famasi means from the pharmacy.

kutoka often means:

• to come from
• from

In this sentence it tells you the place from which Asha made the call.

So it is giving the source/location of the action:

• she called from the pharmacy

ili introduces a purpose clause. It means:

• so that
• in order to

So:

• ili aulize = so that she could ask / in order to ask

It connects the first action with its purpose:

• Asha called her sister in order to ask something.

Because after ili, Swahili usually uses the subjunctive.

So:

• aulize = that she ask / so that she may ask
• anauliza = she is asking / she asks

In other words:

• ili aulize = in order to ask
• anauliza would sound like a regular statement, not a purpose clause

So the sentence needs aulize, not anauliza.

Here kama means if/whether in an indirect question.

So:

• aulize kama anahitaji... = ask whether/if she needs...

This is different from other uses of kama, which can also mean things like like or as, depending on context.

In this sentence, it clearly means whether/if.

The most natural interpretation is that anahitaji refers to the sister.

So the meaning is:

• Asha called her sister to ask whether her sister needs toothpaste.

That makes the most sense logically, because Asha is calling the sister to find out the sister's need.

If a speaker wanted to make it extra explicit, they could repeat the noun:

• kama dada yake anahitaji dawa ya meno

But in the original sentence, the meaning is normally understood from context.

Because Swahili normally puts the subject information inside the verb.

For example:

• a-ulize = she ask / that she ask
• a-nahitaji = she needs

So Swahili does not need a separate word like English she every time.

That is why once Asha has been introduced, later verbs can just use a-.

dawa ya meno literally means something like medicine of the teeth or medicine for teeth.

The ya is a connector that links the two nouns. It is the form of the -a connective used here after dawa.

So:

• dawa = medicine / remedy
• meno = teeth
• dawa ya meno = toothpaste / dental medicine, depending on context

In this sentence, it means toothpaste.

This pattern is very common in Swahili:

• kitabu cha mwanafunzi = the student's book
• maji ya kunywa = drinking water
• dawa ya meno = toothpaste

Because Swahili does not have articles that work like English a/an/the.

So nouns like:

• simu
• famasi
• dawa ya meno

do not need separate article words.

The translator supplies a, the, or no article at all based on context. For example:

• kutoka famasi can be translated as from the pharmacy or from a pharmacy, depending on the situation.

So this is not something missing from the Swahili sentence; it is just how Swahili grammar works.