Kalamu hii haifanyi kazi, tafadhali niletee nyingine.

In Swahili, words like this and that usually come after the noun, not before it. So:

• kalamu hii = this pen
• not hii kalamu

The demonstrative also has to match the noun class of kalamu, which is why the form is hii.

Swahili does not normally use articles like English a/an/the. A noun like kalamu can mean:

• a pen
• the pen
• just pen

The exact meaning comes from context. In this sentence, hii makes it specific: kalamu hii = this pen.

Kalamu belongs to noun class 9/10. This matters because other words in the sentence have to agree with that class.

You can see that agreement in:

• hii = this
• hai- in haifanyi = it does not...
• nyingine = another / other one

Swahili uses this kind of agreement all the time, so learning noun classes is very important.

Haifanyi kazi means it doesn’t work or it isn’t functioning.

A helpful breakdown is:

• ha- = negative marker
• i- = subject marker agreeing with kalamu
• -fanyi = verb stem in the negative present form from fanya (do)
• kazi = work

So literally it is something like it does not do work, which is the natural Swahili way to say it doesn’t work.

In the present negative, many Swahili verbs change their final vowel from -a to -i.

So:

• anafanya = he/she is doing
• hafanyi = he/she is not doing

That same pattern appears here:

• haifanyi = it does not do

This is a very common negative pattern in Swahili.

Because kufanya kazi is the normal expression for to work or to function.

So:

• haifanyi kazi = it doesn’t work
• haifanyi by itself usually means it doesn’t do or it isn’t doing, which sounds incomplete unless the context already makes the missing idea clear.

In this sentence, kazi is an important part of the expression.

Tafadhali means please. It makes the request polite:

• tafadhali niletee nyingine = please bring me another one

It is a very common word for polite requests in Swahili.

Niletee means bring me or bring to me.

It includes:

• ni- = me
• a form related to leta = bring

So the speaker is not just asking for another pen to exist somewhere; they are asking someone to bring it to them.

Because -ingine (other / another) changes form to agree with the noun class.

For example:

• mtu mwingine = another person
• kalamu nyingine = another pen

Since kalamu is class 9/10, the correct form is nyingine, not mwingine.

Yes. Nyingine here means another one, with kalamu understood from context.

So:

• tafadhali niletee nyingine = please bring me another one
• fuller version: tafadhali niletee kalamu nyingine = please bring me another pen

Leaving out the repeated noun is very natural in Swahili when the meaning is already clear.

Because Swahili often puts pronoun information inside the verb itself.

In haifanyi:

• i- already tells you the subject is something from the same noun class as kalamu

So a separate word for it is not needed. The verb already carries that information.

Yes. You could say:

• Kalamu hii haifanyi kazi, tafadhali niletee kalamu nyingine.

That is a little more explicit: This pen doesn’t work, please bring me another pen.

The version with just nyingine is shorter and very natural because the noun kalamu is already understood.