Keshia alimwambia Asha aweke mkate na matunda ndani ya troli ndogo.

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

It breaks down like this:

• a- = he/she
• -li- = past tense
• -mw- = him/her object marker
• -ambia = tell / say to

So alimwambia literally means he/she told him/her.

In this sentence, the subject is Keshia, so it means Keshia told her.

This is a very common Swahili pattern. The object marker -mw- already points to Asha, but the full noun is still added for clarity or emphasis.

So:

• alimwambia = she told her
• alimwambia Asha = she told Asha

English usually does not repeat the object this way, but Swahili often does, especially with specific people.

Aweke is in the subjunctive, which is very common after verbs like:

• tell
• want
• ask
• order
• advise

After alimwambia Asha..., Swahili uses the subjunctive to show what Asha was told to do.

So:

• aweke = that she put / for her to put / she should put

By contrast:

• aliweka = she put (simple past statement)
• kuweka = to put / putting (infinitive)

So alimwambia Asha aweke... means Keshia told Asha to put...

The subject of aweke is Asha.

The a- at the start of aweke is the third-person singular subject marker, meaning he/she. In context, it refers to Asha.

So the sentence is structured like this:

• Keshia told Asha
• that Asha should put the bread and fruit...

Ndani ya means inside of or simply inside.

It is a very common Swahili expression:

• ndani = inside/interior
• ya = a linking word meaning of, agreeing with the following noun class

So:

• ndani ya troli ndogo = inside the small trolley/cart

English often just says inside the trolley, but Swahili commonly uses this fuller structure.

Ndogo means small, and it agrees with the noun class of troli.

Troli is a loanword, and nouns like this usually fall into the N-class in Swahili. In that class, the adjective form for small is often ndogo.

So:

• troli ndogo = small trolley

You may notice that ndogo looks the same in singular and plural with many N-class nouns.

Yes. Troli is a borrowed word, from English trolley.

Swahili uses many loanwords, especially for modern objects, technology, transport, and items introduced through contact with other languages.

So even though it comes from English originally, troli is perfectly normal Swahili vocabulary.

Here, na means and.

So:

• mkate na matunda = bread and fruit

The word na can also mean with, depending on context. But in this sentence, it joins two things being put into the trolley, so and is the natural meaning.

Swahili does not usually use articles like English a, an, and the.

That means a noun like mkate can mean:

• bread
• a loaf of bread
• the bread

The exact meaning depends on context.

The same is true for matunda and troli ndogo. Context tells you whether English should use a, the, or no article at all.

Yes, matunda is grammatically plural.

The singular is tunda = a fruit The plural is matunda = fruits

However, in English, fruit is often used as a mass noun, so matunda may be translated as either fruit or fruits, depending on the context.

Swahili nouns usually do not change form for subject vs. object the way nouns or pronouns do in some languages.

Instead, Swahili shows relationships through:

• verb markers
• word order
• context

So Asha stays Asha whether she is the subject or object. In this sentence, we know she is the object of alimwambia because of the structure and because the verb already includes the object marker -mw-.

Yes, it could.

You could say:

• Keshia alimwambia aweke mkate na matunda ndani ya troli ndogo.

That would still mean Keshia told her to put bread and fruit inside the small trolley, as long as it is clear from context who her is.

Adding Asha makes the sentence more explicit and removes ambiguity.

The sentence has two parts:

1. Keshia alimwambia Asha
   = Keshia told Asha

2. aweke mkate na matunda ndani ya troli ndogo
   = to put bread and fruit inside the small trolley

So the full pattern is:

• [main clause]: someone told someone
• [subjunctive clause]: what that person should do

This is a very common Swahili sentence pattern.