Daladala ilisimama ghafla kwa sababu breki zilitoa sauti mbaya karibu na stendi.

Daladala is a very common Tanzanian word for a public minibus or small city bus. It is not just any bus in a general sense; it usually refers to the shared public transport vehicles people use for everyday travel.

So in this sentence, daladala means something like the minibus / the city minibus.

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

So:

• Daladala ilisimama can mean the minibus stopped or a minibus stopped
• breki zilitoa sauti mbaya can mean the brakes made a bad noise or brakes made a bad noise

The exact English article depends on context.

Ilisimama can be broken down like this:

• i- = subject marker for a noun in this class, here referring to daladala
• -li- = past tense marker
• simama = stand, stop

So ilisimama means it stopped.

Literally, it is something like it-past-stop.

That is a very common learner question.

The verb simama often means stand for a person, but it can also mean come to a stop or stop moving.

For example:

• Mtu anasimama = A person is standing / stops
• Gari limesimama = The car has stopped

So with a vehicle like daladala, ilisimama naturally means it stopped.

Ghafla means suddenly. In Swahili, adverbs often come after the verb they modify.

So:

• ilisimama ghafla = stopped suddenly

This word order is very normal in Swahili. English can also do this sometimes, but Swahili uses this pattern very naturally.

Yes. Kwa sababu is a fixed expression meaning because.

It introduces the reason:

• Daladala ilisimama ghafla kwa sababu...
• The minibus stopped suddenly because...

You can think of kwa sababu as one chunk when reading.

Because Swahili shows number not only in the noun itself, but also in agreement on the verb.

Here:

• breki = brakes
• zili- = past-tense verb agreement for a plural noun of this class
• zilitoa = they produced / they gave out

Many loanwords in Swahili do not change form visibly between singular and plural, so the agreement helps you see the number.

So in this sentence, breki zilitoa clearly means the brakes made / produced.

Zilitoa breaks down like this:

• zi- = subject marker for the plural noun class used here with breki
• -li- = past tense
• toa = give out, produce

So zilitoa sauti mbaya literally means:

• they gave out a bad sound

In more natural English:

• they made a bad noise
• they produced an unpleasant sound

In Swahili, adjectives usually come after the noun.

So:

• sauti mbaya = bad noise / unpleasant sound

This is the normal word order:

• noun first
• adjective second

The adjective mbaya agrees with the noun class, but with nouns like sauti, the form may not visibly change.

Here karibu na means near or close to.

So:

• karibu na stendi = near the station / near the stand / near the bus stop

Be careful: karibu can mean different things in different contexts, such as near, welcome, or about/approximately. But in this sentence, because it is followed by na stendi, it clearly means near.

Stendi is a loanword from English stand, but in Swahili it usually means something like:

• station
• bus stand
• bus stop
• transport stand

The exact English translation depends on context. In a sentence about a daladala, stendi often suggests a bus stand or stop.

It can feel a little ambiguous if you look at it very closely.

Grammatically, karibu na stendi comes after the whole reason clause, so it may be understood as the location of the noisy-brake event:

• the brakes made a bad noise near the stand

But in natural reading, many people may understand it more broadly as the location of the whole situation:

• the minibus stopped suddenly near the stand because the brakes made a bad noise

Context usually makes this clear in real life.

Because both actions are being narrated as past events:

• ilisimama = stopped
• zilitoa = made / produced

English also often does this:

• The minibus stopped suddenly because the brakes made a bad noise

So Swahili is matching the same overall time frame for both parts of the sentence.