Mama hatumii mafuta mengi; wakati mwingine hutumia samli kidogo tu kupika chapati.

Mother does not use a lot of oil; sometimes she uses just a little ghee to cook chapati.

Breakdown of Mama hatumii mafuta mengi; wakati mwingine hutumia samli kidogo tu kupika chapati.

• kupika: to cook
• mama: the mother
• mengi: a lot
• mafuta: the oil

Questions & Answers about Mama hatumii mafuta mengi; wakati mwingine hutumia samli kidogo tu kupika chapati.

Why is the verb hatumii used with Mama?

Because Mama is treated as a singular human noun, so it takes class 1 subject agreement.

With this verb:

• affirmative would be anatumia = she uses / she is using
• negative becomes hatumii = she does not use

So even though mama does not visibly look like a class 1 noun, it still behaves like one grammatically because it refers to a person.

Why does hatumii end in -ii instead of -a?

In the negative present, Swahili verbs normally change the final -a to -i.

So:

• kutumia → anatumia in the affirmative
• kutumia → hatumii in the negative

The verb -tumia already has an i before the final vowel, so when the final -a changes to -i, you get -ii:

• tumia → tumii

That is why hatumii looks a little unusual at first.

What is the difference between hatumii and hutumia in this sentence?