Uongo mdogo unaweza kuleta hasira kubwa nyumbani.

Because in Swahili, adjectives normally come after the noun they describe.

So:

• uongo mdogo = small lie
• hasira kubwa = big/great anger

This noun + adjective order is one of the first big word-order differences English speakers notice.

Mdogo literally means small or little, but in this sentence it is better understood as minor.

So uongo mdogo is not a physically small lie, of course. It means a lie that seems unimportant, slight, or minor.

Also, in other contexts mdogo can mean young or younger, so its exact meaning depends on the noun it goes with.

This is a very common beginner question, because unaweza can indeed mean you can in other sentences.

Here, though, unaweza agrees with the subject uongo, not with you.

Breakdown:

• u- = subject marker agreeing with uongo
• -na- = present tense
• -weza = be able / can

So:

• uongo mdogo unaweza... = a small lie can...

In a different sentence, Unaweza kuja could mean You can come, because there the subject is understood as you.

After -weza (can / be able to), the following verb is usually put in the infinitive form, which starts with ku-.

So:

• unaweza kuleta = can bring

This is normal Swahili structure.

A few similar examples:

• ninaweza kusema = I can speak
• anaweza kwenda = he/she can go

So kuleta is not random here; it is the expected infinitive after unaweza.

This is because of noun class agreement, which is a central part of Swahili grammar.

Uongo belongs to a noun class that uses its own agreement patterns. That affects both:

• the adjective: mdogo
• the verb: u-na-weza

So the sentence is internally matching:

• uongo mdogo
• uongo unaweza

English does not do this kind of agreement, so it can feel strange at first. In Swahili, though, this matching pattern is very important.

Literally, yes, kubwa means big or large. But with abstract nouns, it often means great, serious, or intense.

So:

• hasira kubwa = great anger, strong anger, or serious anger

It is not talking about physical size. This is very normal in Swahili, just as English says great anger or big problem.

Hasira is a noun meaning anger, temper, or resentment, depending on context.

Grammatically, it behaves like a noun that takes the adjective form kubwa, so hasira kubwa is correct.

One thing that can confuse learners is that many Swahili nouns borrowed from Arabic do not have very obvious class prefixes. That means you often have to learn their agreement from real examples rather than from the shape of the word alone.

Nyumbani comes from nyumba (house / home) plus the locative ending -ni.

So nyumbani means something like:

• at home
• in the home
• at the house

Swahili often uses locative forms like this instead of a separate preposition such as at.

In this sentence, nyumbani is best understood as at home or in the household.

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

So a noun like uongo can be understood from context as:

• a lie
• the lie
• lie in a general sense

In this sentence, the meaning is general and proverb-like, so English naturally uses a small lie.

It can be understood as both, but it definitely has a proverb-like feel.

It expresses a general truth or warning:

• something small can cause something much bigger
• a minor lie can create serious conflict at home

So even if it is not a fixed proverb in every context, it sounds very natural as a moral observation or caution.