Mwalimu alisoma rasimu yangu na kunionyesha kosa.

It can mean either. Swahili does not have grammatical gender like he/she built into most nouns the way some European languages do.

• mwalimu = teacher (male or female)
• The verb marker a- in alisoma also means he/she for a singular person in this noun class.

So the sentence itself does not tell you whether the teacher is male or female unless the wider context does.

alisoma can be divided like this:

• a- = he/she
• -li- = past tense
• -soma = read / study

So alisoma literally means he/she read or he/she studied.

In this sentence, because the object is rasimu yangu (my draft), the natural meaning is read.

In Swahili, possessives usually come after the noun, not before it.

So:

• rasimu yangu = my draft
• not yangu rasimu

Also, the possessive form agrees with the noun class of the thing possessed. Here:

• rasimu belongs to a class that takes yangu for my

Compare:

• rasimu yangu = my draft
• mwalimu wangu = my teacher

So the position and the agreement are both important.

kunionyesha breaks down like this:

• ku- = infinitive marker
• -ni- = me (object marker)
• -onyesha = show

So the idea is to show me.

That means:

• kunionyesha kosa = to show me a mistake/error

The -ni- is very useful in Swahili because object pronouns are often attached to the verb instead of being separate words.

This is a common way in Swahili to link actions, especially when the same subject is doing both.

So:

• Mwalimu alisoma rasimu yangu na kunionyesha kosa = The teacher read my draft and showed me a mistake

After na, Swahili often uses the infinitive form ku-... to connect the next action smoothly.

It is a bit like saying:

• The teacher read my draft and went on to show me a mistake

It keeps the second action tightly connected to the first one.

Yes, in this sentence na means and.

So it links the two actions:

• alisoma rasimu yangu = read my draft
• na kunionyesha kosa = and show/showing me a mistake

Be careful, though: na can mean different things in other contexts, such as with, and it is also used in some structures meaning have. But here it is simply the conjunction and.

Because Swahili does not normally use articles like English a/an/the.

So:

• mwalimu can mean a teacher or the teacher
• rasimu yangu can mean my draft
• kosa can mean a mistake, the mistake, or just mistake/error, depending on context

English forces you to choose an article, but Swahili usually leaves that to context.

kosa can mean either mistake or error. In many contexts, both translations work.

Its plural is:

• kosa = mistake/error
• makosa = mistakes/errors

So if the teacher pointed out more than one, you could say:

• Mwalimu alisoma rasimu yangu na kunionyesha makosa = The teacher read my draft and showed me mistakes

Yes, that is also a very natural Swahili sentence.

Breakdown of akanionyesha:

• a- = he/she
• -ka- = consecutive and then
• -ni- = me
• -onyesha = show

So:

• Mwalimu alisoma rasimu yangu akanionyesha kosa = The teacher read my draft and then showed me a mistake

Compared with na kunionyesha, aka- can sound a little more like the next event in sequence: and then showed me.

Both are useful patterns to learn.