Tafadhali weka rimoti juu ya jokofu, si juu ya meza ya sebuleni.

In Swahili, commands often do not need an explicit subject.
Weka by itself means put! / place! and is understood as a command to you.

So:

• Weka rimoti... = Put the remote...
• You do not need a separate word for you.

If you want to make the command plural, you would say wekeni to address more than one person.

Kuweka is the dictionary form, meaning to put / to place.

When giving a direct command in Swahili, the ku- infinitive prefix is usually removed:

• kuweka = to put
• weka! = put!

This is a very common pattern:

• kuchukua → chukua! = take!
• kuleta → leta! = bring!
• kukaa → kaa! = sit/stay!

Tafadhali means please.

It makes the command more polite:

• Tafadhali weka rimoti... = Please put the remote...

It can appear in different positions, though sentence-initial position is very common:

• Tafadhali, weka rimoti...
• Weka rimoti, tafadhali.

All of these are natural and polite.

Yes. Rimoti is a common borrowed word from English remote, especially for a TV remote.

Swahili uses many loanwords, especially for modern objects. The pronunciation and spelling are adapted to Swahili sound patterns.

You may also hear more specific expressions in some contexts, but rimoti is widely understood in everyday speech.

Juu ya means on top of / on / above, depending on context.

In this sentence:

• juu ya jokofu = on top of the refrigerator
• juu ya meza = on the table

Literally, juu means something like top / upper part / above, and ya links it to the following noun.

So the structure is:

• juu ya + noun = on top of / on + noun

The word ya is a connector, often like of or part of a set phrase.

It appears here for two different reasons:

1. juu ya jokofu
   Here, ya is part of the expression juu ya = on top of / on.

2. meza ya sebuleni
   Here, ya links table and living room, so the phrase means something like:

   • table of the living room
   • more naturally in English: the living room table

So even though both are ya, the role depends on the structure.

Sebule means living room / sitting room.
When it becomes sebuleni, the ending -ni adds a locational meaning:

• sebule = living room
• sebuleni = in the living room / at the living room

So:

• meza ya sebuleni literally means table of in-the-living-room
• naturally: the living room table

This -ni ending is very common for places:

• nyumbani = at home
• shuleni = at school
• dukani = at the shop/store

Here si means not.

So:

• si juu ya meza ya sebuleni = not on the living room table

It is correcting or contrasting the location:

• Put the remote on the fridge, not on the living room table.

This use of si is common in short corrections and contrasts.

They are closely related, and in many everyday situations you may hear both.
However, si is very common in short negative contrasts like this:

• juu ya jokofu, si juu ya meza = on the fridge, not on the table

Learners will often encounter si in:

• identification negation
• short corrections
• contrastive statements

You may hear sio in spoken Swahili too, but si is perfectly normal here.

Not if you specifically mean on top of the fridge.

• juu ya jokofu = on top of the refrigerator
• kwenye jokofu can sound more general, like on/at the refrigerator, and may be less precise

If the remote is physically resting on the top surface, juu ya is the clearest choice.

So in this sentence, juu ya is better because it clearly contrasts two surfaces:

• the top of the fridge
• the table in the living room

No. Jokofu is a standard Swahili word for refrigerator or fridge.
But in everyday speech, many speakers also use borrowed forms like friji.

So you may hear both:

• jokofu
• friji

Both are useful to recognize. In more careful or standard Swahili, jokofu is very common.

Swahili often uses a linking structure where one noun modifies another:

• meza ya sebuleni = table of the living room
• natural English: living room table

So the main noun comes first:

• meza = table

Then the descriptive phrase follows:

• ya sebuleni = of the living room / in the living room

This is a very common Swahili pattern. Compare:

• mlango wa nyumba = door of the house
• kitabu cha mwanafunzi = the student’s book / book of the student

Very roughly, the sentence breaks down like this:

• Tafadhali = please
• weka = put
• rimoti = remote
• juu ya jokofu = on top of the refrigerator
• si = not
• juu ya meza ya sebuleni = on the living room table

A more literal gloss would be:

Please put the remote on top of the refrigerator, not on top of the table of the living room.

Natural English simplifies that to:

Please put the remote on the fridge, not on the living room table.