Mtoto aliogopa radi, lakini mama alimwambia ngurumo hizo haziwezi kuingia ndani ya nyumba.

Both verbs show the usual Swahili pattern of subject prefix + tense marker + verb stem.

• aliogopa = a- (he/she) + -li- (past) + -ogopa (fear)
  • So it means he/she feared or he/she was afraid of.
• alimwambia = a- (he/she) + -li- (past) + -mw- (him/her) + -ambia (tell/say to)
  • So it means he/she told him/her.

This is one of the most important verb patterns in Swahili, so this sentence is a good example of it.

Because kuogopa takes a direct object in Swahili.

In English, we often say be afraid of thunder, but in Swahili you simply say:

• kuogopa radi = to fear thunder
• aliogopa radi = the child feared thunder

So Swahili does not need a separate word matching English of here.

Alimwambia means she told him/her or she said to him/her.

The important part is -mw-, which shows the person being spoken to.

• alisema = she said
• alimwambia = she told him/her

So kuambia is used when there is a listener/recipient built into the verb. In this sentence, the mother is speaking to someone, so alimwambia is the natural choice.

Swahili usually does not mark gender in this kind of verb agreement.

So alimwambia can mean:

• she told him
• she told her

The form is the same. You understand who it refers to from context.

Here, the most natural interpretation is that the mother told the child, because Mtoto was just mentioned in the previous part of the sentence.

Because mama is treated as a human noun and normally takes class 1/2 agreement.

So for a singular human subject, the verb uses a-:

• mama alimwambia = mother told him/her

Even though the noun form itself is mama, the agreement still follows the human pattern. This is very normal in Swahili with kinship terms and other human nouns.

They are related, but they are not exactly the same in feel.

A learner will often notice that the sentence first has radi, then later ngurumo hizo. This suggests a small shift in focus:

• radi refers to the thunder/lightning phenomenon generally
• ngurumo refers more specifically to the rumbling / thunderclaps / booming sounds

So the child is frightened by radi, and the mother then talks about those thunder sounds: ngurumo hizo.

In real usage, these words can overlap somewhat, but the sentence is distinguishing the frightening storm phenomenon from the loud noises it makes.

Because in Swahili, words like demonstratives usually come after the noun they describe.

So:

• ngurumo hizo = those thunderclaps / those rumblings

This noun-first order is very common in Swahili:

• mtoto huyu = this child
• nyumba hiyo = that house
• ngurumo hizo = those rumblings

That is the normal word order.

We know it from the agreement words, not from the noun form itself.

Ngurumo belongs to a noun class where singular and plural can look the same. The clues are:

• hizo = plural those
• haziwezi = plural they cannot

So here ngurumo is understood as plural because the rest of the sentence agrees with it.

Compare:

• ngurumo hiyo haiwezi... = that thunderclap / that rumbling cannot...
• ngurumo hizo haziwezi... = those thunderclaps / those rumblings cannot...

So agreement is what tells you the number.

It means they cannot enter.

You can break haziwezi down like this:

• ha- = negative
• zi- = subject agreement for this noun class/plural
• -wez- = root meaning be able
• -i = negative final vowel

Then kuingia is the infinitive to enter.

So:

• haziwezi kuingia = they cannot enter

This is a very common structure in Swahili:

• hawezi kuja = he/she cannot come
• hatuwezi kuona = we cannot see
• haziwezi kuingia = they cannot enter

Both are possible, but they are slightly different in feel.

• ndani ya nyumba = inside the house
• nyumbani = at home / in the house / home

Here, ndani ya nyumba is more explicit and physical. It emphasizes inside the house, which fits the mother’s reassurance that the thunder cannot come in.

So the phrase is a bit more vivid and specific than just nyumbani.

Hizo is a demonstrative meaning those, and it agrees with the noun class of ngurumo.

So ngurumo hizo means those thunderclaps / those rumblings.

It does two jobs at once:

• it points to something specific: those
• it shows noun-class agreement

Swahili demonstratives always have to match the noun class, so you cannot just use one general word for those with every noun.