Daktari alisema ufizi wangu unauma kidogo leo.

Alisema breaks down as:

• a- = he/she
• -li- = past tense
• -sema = say

So Daktari alisema means the doctor said or a doctor said, depending on context.

If it were plural, you would normally get madaktari walisema = the doctors said.

In Swahili, kwamba = that, but it is often optional after verbs like say, know, think, and hear.

So both of these are natural:

• Daktari alisema ufizi wangu unauma kidogo leo.
• Daktari alisema kwamba ufizi wangu unauma kidogo leo.

The second one is a little more explicit, but the first is very normal.

Because in Swahili, a normal finite verb usually still shows who or what the subject is, even when the full noun is stated.

So:

• Daktari alisema
• ufizi wangu unauma

are both fully normal.

English does not do this in the same way, so it can feel like repetition to an English speaker, but in Swahili it is just standard agreement.

Strictly speaking, ufizi is singular: gum.

The clearly plural form is:

• fizi = gums

So if you want to say my gums hurt a little today in an unmistakably plural way, you would say:

• Fizi zangu zinauma kidogo leo.

The sentence you were given uses the singular form ufizi. English often talks about gums as a whole area, so translations may sound more natural in plural English even when the Swahili form is singular.

This is noun class agreement.

Ufizi belongs to a noun class that takes:

• w- in the possessive: wangu = my
• u- on the verb: unauma = hurts / is hurting

So:

• ufizi wangu = my gum
• ufizi wangu unauma = my gum hurts

If you switch to plural fizi, the agreement changes:

• fizi zangu
• fizi zinauma

This kind of agreement is a major feature of Swahili grammar.

Unauma breaks down as:

• u- = subject marker agreeing with ufizi
• -na- = present tense
• -uma = hurt / ache here

So ufizi wangu unauma literally means something like my gum is hurting or my gum hurts.

There is no separate word for is in this part, because the tense and subject are built into the verb itself.

Good question. Kuuma can mean different things depending on context.

Common uses:

• Mbwa anamuuma mtoto = The dog is biting the child
• Jino linauma = The tooth hurts
• Ufizi unauma = The gum hurts

So with a body part as the subject, kuuma often means to hurt / ache.

A related verb is kuumiza, which often means to hurt someone/something or to cause pain.

Here kidogo means a little, slightly, or a bit.

It is functioning adverbially, modifying the pain:

• unauma kidogo = hurts a little

So the idea is not strong pain, but mild pain.

Yes, leo means today, and time words are fairly flexible in Swahili.

These are all possible:

• Ufizi wangu unauma kidogo leo.
• Leo ufizi wangu unauma kidogo.
• Ufizi wangu leo unauma kidogo.

Putting leo at the end is very natural. Moving it changes emphasis slightly, but not the core meaning.

Swahili does not have articles like English a/an and the.

So daktari can mean:

• a doctor
• the doctor

Context tells you which English version sounds right.

That is why Daktari alisema can be translated either as The doctor said or A doctor said, depending on the situation.

Normally, this is understood as reported speech:

• The doctor said that my gum/gums hurt a little today.

If you want to make that especially clear, you can add kwamba:

• Daktari alisema kwamba ufizi wangu unauma kidogo leo.

If you want true direct speech, Swahili usually makes that clearer with punctuation, a colon, or quotation marks in writing.

A simple pronunciation guide with penultimate stress would be:

• dak-TA-ri
• a-li-SE-ma
• u-FI-zi
• WA-ngu
• u-na-U-ma
• ki-DO-go
• LE-o

A few useful notes:

• Swahili vowels are pronounced clearly.
• leo has two vowels pronounced separately: LE-o
• In wangu, ng is like the sound in finger, not the ng in sing

So the full sentence sounds roughly like:

dak-TA-ri a-li-SE-ma u-FI-zi WA-ngu u-na-U-ma ki-DO-go LE-o