Chakula hakijaiva bado.

A helpful breakdown is:

• chakula = food / meal
• ha-ki-ja-iva = it is not yet cooked / it has not become cooked
• bado = yet / still

So the whole sentence naturally means The food is not cooked yet or The meal is not ready yet.

Swahili does not normally use articles like the or a/an. So chakula can mean:

• food
• the food
• some food

The exact meaning depends on context. In this sentence, English usually translates it as the food because both speaker and listener probably know which food is being talked about.

Because the verb has to agree with the noun class of chakula.

Chakula belongs to the ki-/vi- noun class in the singular, so its subject marker is ki-.
That is why the verb contains ki:

• ha- = negative
• ki- = subject marker agreeing with chakula
• -ja- = negative perfect / not yet
• iva = be cooked, be ripe, be ready

So hakijaiva is the correct agreement form for chakula.

-ja- is used in the negative perfect. In many everyday cases, it gives the sense of not yet or has not.

Compare:

• Chakula kimeiva = The food is cooked / has cooked / is ready
• Chakula hakijaiva = The food is not cooked yet / has not cooked yet

So Swahili does not usually make the negative by just adding a negative word to kimeiva. It changes the tense/aspect form to hakijaiva.

Bado strengthens or makes the yet/still idea more explicit.

So:

• Chakula hakijaiva = The food is not cooked yet
• Chakula hakijaiva bado = The food is still not cooked yet

In real speech, adding bado is very common and sounds natural. It often gives a stronger feeling of still or not yet.

Not exactly. -iva more broadly means be ripe, be mature, or be done/ready.

So its meaning depends on context:

• with fruit: Ndizi zimeiva = The bananas are ripe
• with food being prepared: Chakula kimeiva = The food is cooked / ready

So in this sentence, -iva means the food has reached the state of being properly cooked or ready.

Good question. There is a small difference in focus.

• -pika = cook something
• -pikwa = be cooked
• -iva = become cooked / be done / be ready

So:

• Chakula hakijapikwa bado = The food has not been cooked yet
• Chakula hakijaiva bado = The food is not done yet / has not become cooked yet

In many situations, both are possible, but hakijaiva bado often focuses on the result: the food is still not ready.

You would say:

Chakula kimeiva.

Here, ki- still agrees with chakula, but now the tense marker is -me-, which gives the perfect sense:

• kimeiva = it is cooked / it has become ready

So:

• Chakula kimeiva = The food is cooked / ready
• Chakula hakijaiva bado = The food is not cooked yet

Yes. Word order in Swahili is somewhat flexible here.

You may hear:

• Chakula hakijaiva bado
• Chakula bado hakijaiva

Both are natural. The meaning stays basically the same, though the placement of bado can slightly change the emphasis.

What does not change is the structure inside the verb: ha-ki-ja-iva stays together.

The main change would be the subject agreement inside the verb.

For example:

• chakula hakijaiva bado = the food is not cooked yet
• nyama haijaiva bado = the meat is not cooked yet
• maharagwe hayajaiva bado = the beans are not cooked yet
• vyakula havijaiva bado = the foods/dishes are not cooked yet

So the negative pattern stays similar, but the middle part changes to match the noun class:

• ki for chakula
• i for nyama
• ya for maharagwe
• vi for vyakula

Usually chakula behaves like a singular mass noun meaning food in general, much like English food. But it can also mean a meal depending on context.

Its plural is vyakula, which usually means foods, food items, or dishes.

So in this sentence, chakula is best understood as the food or the meal as one thing.