Mama anasema kununua chakula kingi kuliko tunachohitaji ni hasara.

A useful way to see it is in chunks:

• Mama anasema = Mother says / Mom says
• kununua chakula kingi kuliko tunachohitaji = buying more food than we need
• ni hasara = is a waste / is a loss

So the middle chunk, starting with kununua, functions like a noun phrase in English, similar to buying too much food.

In other words, the sentence structure is:

• speaker: Mama
• reporting verb: anasema
• whole idea being reported: kununua chakula kingi kuliko tunachohitaji ni hasara

Swahili often lets a whole infinitive phrase such as kununua chakula act as the subject of a sentence.

Because Swahili often does not need an equivalent of English that in this kind of sentence.

English:

• Mom says that buying too much food is a waste.

Swahili:

• Mama anasema kununua chakula kingi... ni hasara

You can sometimes add kwamba for that:

• Mama anasema kwamba kununua chakula kingi kuliko tunachohitaji ni hasara.

That is also correct, but in everyday Swahili it is very common to leave kwamba out.

Anasema can be broken down like this:

• a- = he/she
• -na- = present tense
• -sema = say

So:

• anasema = he/she says / is saying

Because Mama is a singular human subject, Swahili uses the subject marker a-.

Because kununua is the infinitive, meaning to buy, and Swahili uses infinitives very naturally where English often uses -ing forms.

So:

• kununua = to buy / buying

In this sentence, kununua chakula kingi kuliko tunachohitaji works like buying more food than we need.

This is very common in Swahili:

• Kusoma ni muhimu = Reading is important
• Kula vizuri ni afya = Eating well is healthy

So here, kununua is not just a verb form floating on its own; it is the head of a whole infinitive phrase acting as the subject of ni hasara.

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

Here:

• chakula = food
• -ingi = much / many / a lot

Since chakula is treated as a singular noun of the ki-/vi- class, the adjective takes the matching form:

• kingi = much / a lot of

So:

• chakula kingi = a lot of food / much food

Even though chakula does not look exactly like a typical ki- noun on the surface, its agreement shows its class:

• singular: chakula
• plural: vyakula

That is why the adjective is kingi.

Kuliko means than in comparisons.

So:

• chakula kingi kuliko tunachohitaji = more food than we need

It introduces the second part of the comparison, just like English than:

• kubwa kuliko = bigger than
• zaidi kuliko = more than
• kingi kuliko = more/much more than, in agreement with the noun being described

In this sentence, the idea is comparison of amount:

• the amount of food bought compared with
• the amount of food needed

A good breakdown is:

• tu- = we
• -na- = present tense
• -cho- = relative marker agreeing with chakula
• -hitaji = need

So tunachohitaji means something like:

• what we need
• that which we need
• the food that we need

In smoother English, after kuliko, it often comes out simply as than we need.

This is one of those places where Swahili is more explicit than English. English can say:

• more food than we need

But Swahili often builds that with a relative structure:

• more food than that which we need

Because it agrees with chakula.

The noun chakula belongs to the singular ki-/vi- class, and the relative marker for that class is -cho-.

So the relative clause is linked to chakula like this:

• chakula tunachohitaji = the food that we need

You will see other relative markers with other noun classes, for example:

• mtu tunayemhitaji = the person whom we need
• kitabu ninachosoma = the book that I am reading
• vitu tunavyotaka = the things that we want

So -cho- is not random; it is there because the thing being referred to is chakula.

Ni is the copula here, meaning is.

So:

• ni hasara = is a waste / is a loss

Swahili often uses ni to connect one noun phrase to another:

• Huyu ni mwalimu = This is a teacher
• Kusubiri ni shida = Waiting is a problem
• Kununua chakula kingi... ni hasara = Buying a lot of food... is a waste

Here, hasara is a noun, not an adjective. The sentence is saying that the act of buying too much food equals a waste/loss.

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

So:

• Mama can mean Mother / Mom, depending on context
• chakula can mean food / the food
• hasara can mean a waste / waste / a loss, depending on context

The exact English article is usually supplied by context and meaning, not by a separate word in Swahili.

That is why ni hasara can be translated naturally as:

• is a waste
• is wasteful
• is a loss

depending on the situation.

Yes. A few close alternatives are possible, depending on style.

For example:

• Mama anasema kwamba kununua chakula kingi kuliko tunachohitaji ni hasara.
  • Adds kwamba = that

You may also hear other ways of expressing the comparison, depending on the speaker and region, but the given sentence is perfectly understandable and grammatical for a learner to study.

The most important patterns to learn from it are:

• anasema for reporting speech
• infinitive as subject: kununua... ni...
• adjective agreement: chakula kingi
• comparison with kuliko
• relative structure: tunachohitaji

Literally, mama means mother or mom, but in Swahili it can also be used more broadly as a respectful way to refer to a woman, depending on context.

In this sentence, if the meaning already given to the learner is Mother says... or Mom says..., then that is the right interpretation here.

So the important point is:

• Mama is a noun meaning mother/mom
• context decides whether it is literal family reference or respectful address

In a learner sentence like this one, it will usually just mean Mom or Mother.