Juma alijua kinyume cha “baridi”, lakini hakujua kisawe cha “haraka”.

It has two main clauses joined by lakini (but):

• Juma alijua kinyume cha baridi
• lakini hakujua kisawe cha haraka

A rough structure is:

• Juma = subject
• alijua = knew
• kinyume cha baridi = the opposite of baridi
• lakini = but
• hakujua = did not know
• kisawe cha haraka = the synonym of haraka

So the pattern is basically:

Subject + verb + object/complement, lakini + negative verb + object/complement

Alijua means he knew.

It can be broken down like this:

• a- = he/she
• -li- = past tense
• jua = know

So:

a-li-jua = he/she knew

Because the subject is Juma, here it means Juma knew.

Hakujua is the negative past form: he did not know.

It breaks down like this:

• ha- = negative for he/she
• -ku- = negative past marker
• jua = know

So:

ha-ku-jua = he/she did not know

Compare:

• alijua = he knew
• hakujua = he did not know

This is a very common Swahili pattern: the negative verb is not made by simply adding a separate word like English not. Instead, the verb itself changes form.

These are useful vocabulary expressions:

• kinyume cha X = the opposite of X
• kisawe cha X = the synonym of X

So here:

• kinyume cha baridi = the opposite of baridi
• kisawe cha haraka = the synonym of haraka

You can use both patterns with many other words:

• kinyume cha kubwa = the opposite of big
• kisawe cha nzuri = a synonym of good/nice

Cha is the connector meaning something like of, but in Swahili it must agree with the noun before it.

Both kinyume and kisawe belong to noun class 7 singular, which often has the prefix ki-. Because of that, the correct connector is cha:

• kinyume cha ...
• kisawe cha ...

If these nouns were plural, the connector would change:

• vinyume vya ...
• visawe vya ...

So cha is not random; it matches the noun class of the word before it.

The ki- is a noun class prefix. In this case, both words are singular nouns in noun class 7.

That matters because noun class affects agreement elsewhere in the sentence, including the connector:

• class 7 singular often uses ki-
• its agreement form here is cha

So:

• ki-nyume → cha
• ki-sawe → cha

This is one of the reasons Swahili learners pay attention to noun classes: they influence other words around the noun.

Because the sentence is talking about the words themselves, not just using them normally.

This is called mentioning a word rather than using it.

For example, in English:

• Cold has an opposite.
• Quickly has synonyms.

Here Swahili is doing the same thing:

• baridi is being mentioned as a word whose opposite is known
• haraka is being mentioned as a word whose synonym is not known

So the quotation marks, or bold in teaching materials, help show that these are vocabulary items being discussed.

Because Swahili verbs normally include a subject marker even when the subject noun is stated separately.

So in:

• Juma alijua

you have both:

• Juma = the subject noun
• a- = the subject marker on the verb

This is normal Swahili grammar, not repetition in a bad sense.

English usually says:

• Juma knew

Swahili says something more like:

• Juma he-knew

The subject marker on the verb is a standard part of the verb form.

Lakini means but.

It joins two clauses that contrast with each other:

• Juma knew one thing,
• but he did not know another thing.

It usually comes between the two clauses, just like English but:

• Juma alijua ..., lakini hakujua ...

So its placement here is very natural and straightforward.

In this sentence, that is less important than it might seem, because both words are being treated as vocabulary items.

Still, broadly:

• baridi is associated with cold/coolness
• haraka is associated with quickness/quickly/hurry

Swahili words can often function more flexibly than English words, and when a word is being cited after expressions like kinyume cha or kisawe cha, it is basically being treated as a lexical item: the word X.

So a learner does not need to worry too much here about forcing them into a single English-style part of speech category.

Yes, fairly similar in this sentence.

Swahili here follows a pattern close to English:

• Juma = subject
• alijua = verb
• kinyume cha baridi = object/complement

Then:

• lakini = but
• hakujua = did not know
• kisawe cha haraka = object/complement

So for an English speaker, the overall order is not especially difficult. The bigger challenges are usually:

• the verb prefixes
• noun class agreement
• expressions like kinyume cha and kisawe cha

A simple pronunciation guide is:

• Juma → JOO-ma
• alijua → a-li-JOO-a
• kinyume → ki-NYOO-me
• cha → cha
• baridi → ba-REE-di
• lakini → la-KI-ni
• hakujua → ha-koo-JOO-a
• kisawe → ki-SA-we
• haraka → ha-RA-ka

A few helpful points:

• Swahili vowels are usually pronounced clearly: a, e, i, o, u
• j is like English j in jam
• ny is like the ny in canyon
• stress is often on the second-to-last syllable

So the full sentence is approximately:

JOO-ma a-li-JOO-a ki-NYOO-me cha ba-REE-di, la-KI-ni ha-koo-JOO-a ki-SA-we cha ha-RA-ka