Jioni, tulimpeleka mpwa wetu kwa mfamasia ili anunue dawa ya koo.

Jioni means evening or in the evening. At the start of the sentence, it sets the time for the whole event: In the evening, ...

Swahili often puts time expressions at the beginning for emphasis or clarity, but you could also place it later in the sentence.

Tulimpeleka can be broken into:

• tu- = we
• -li- = past tense
• -m- = him/her
• -peleka = take, bring, lead, escort

So tulimpeleka means we took him/her or we brought him/her, depending on context.

This is very typical of Swahili verbs: a lot of information is packed into one word.

That -m- is the object marker for him/her (third person singular animate).

It refers back to mpwa wetu. So instead of saying a separate word for him or her, Swahili puts that information inside the verb.

So:

• tulipeleka = we took
• tulimpeleka = we took him/her

It can mean either nephew or niece. Swahili usually does not mark gender in this noun, so the sentence itself does not tell you whether the child is male or female.

In real use, mpwa can also have somewhat broader family meanings depending on region and family usage, but nephew/niece is the most common learner translation here.

Because possessives in Swahili must agree with the noun class of the noun they describe.

Mpwa belongs to the m-wa class for people, so the possessive stem -etu becomes wetu:

• mpwa wetu = our nephew/niece

If the noun were from a different class, you would get a different form, such as yetu.

So this is noun-class agreement, not a special possessive just for family words.

Kwa is often used for movement to, at, or to the place of a person.

So kwa mfamasia can mean:

• to the pharmacist
• to the pharmacist's place
• sometimes, more loosely, to the pharmacy/pharmacist

With people and professions, kwa is very common.

Mfamasia means pharmacist.

It refers to the person, not the shop itself. So the sentence literally says they took their nephew/niece to the pharmacist, not specifically to the pharmacy building.

If you wanted to talk about the shop more explicitly, you might say something like duka la dawa.

Ili means so that or in order that.

It introduces a purpose clause. In this sentence:

• ili anunue dawa ya koo
  = so that he/she could buy throat medicine

So the first action happened for the purpose of the second action.

Because after ili, Swahili normally uses the subjunctive form.

Breakdown of anunue:

• a- = he/she
• -nunu- = buy
• -e = subjunctive ending

So anunue means something like:

• that he/she buy
• so that he/she may buy
• so that he/she could buy

It does not present the buying as a plain completed fact. It presents it as the intended purpose.

Because the subject is already included in the verb.

In anunue, the prefix a- means he/she. Swahili usually does not need an extra subject pronoun unless you want emphasis or contrast.

So Swahili often says just:

• anunue = he/she may buy

rather than adding a separate word for he/she.

Literally, it is:

• dawa = medicine, remedy
• ya = of / for
• koo = throat

So literally: medicine of the throat.

Natural English would usually be:

• throat medicine
• medicine for the throat

The word ya is the agreeing connector here, matching the noun class of dawa.

In normal reading, yes, that is the natural interpretation.

Grammatically, anunue just says he/she may buy, so in theory it could refer to some other previously known person. But in this sentence, the most natural reading is:

• we took our nephew/niece to the pharmacist so that he/she could buy throat medicine

So the buyer is understood to be the nephew/niece.

Yes. -peleka is often translated as take, bring, lead, or escort, depending on perspective.

In this sentence, English most naturally uses took:

• We took our nephew/niece to the pharmacist ...

But in another context, someone might translate the same verb as bring if that fits the viewpoint better.