Kuku jike ambaye yuko karibu na banda ni mpole sana.

Literally:

• kuku = chicken
• jike = female animal

So kuku jike means female chicken, which English usually translates as hen.

Swahili often makes this kind of meaning by combining a general animal name with a word showing sex:

• kuku jike = hen
• kuku dume = rooster / male chicken

So it is not strange that Swahili uses two words where English often uses one.

You know from the rest of the sentence.

Even though kuku can be singular or plural, the agreement here is singular:

• jike = one female animal
• ambaye = singular animate relative word
• yuko = singular animate is located
• mpole = singular animate form

So the sentence is clearly about one hen, not several chickens.

Ambaye introduces a relative clause. It means who, that, or which depending on the context.

So:

• kuku jike ambaye yuko karibu na banda
  = the hen that is near the coop

It connects kuku jike with the extra information yuko karibu na banda.

For an English speaker, the easiest way to think of ambaye here is that/who.

Good question. In Swahili, animals are often treated grammatically as animate, especially when talking about a specific living creature. Because of that, forms like ambaye and yuko are natural here.

So the hen is being treated as a living being, not just as an object.

A learner may expect something more like an inanimate agreement pattern, but with animals Swahili very often uses animate agreement, especially in everyday speech.

Yes. A common shorter version would be:

• Kuku jike aliye karibu na banda ni mpole sana.

This also means the same thing.

So you can think of:

• ambaye yuko karibu na banda
• aliye karibu na banda

as two ways to say that is near the coop.

The version with ambaye yuko is a bit more explicit and may feel easier for learners to parse.

Because yuko is used for location or being present somewhere.

• yuko karibu na banda = she is near the coop

But ni is not normally used for physical location.

Compare:

• Yuko karibu na banda = She is near the coop
• Ni mpole = She is gentle

So Swahili does not use just one all-purpose word for is in every situation. Different kinds of being use different forms.

Here ni links the subject to a description:

• ni mpole = is gentle / is calm / is mild

So the sentence has two different kinds of is:

• yuko for location: is near the coop
• ni for description: is gentle

This is a very important pattern in Swahili.

Karibu na means near or close to.

• karibu = near / close
• na = to / with, depending on context

In this expression, na is part of the normal pattern before the noun:

• karibu na banda = near the coop
• karibu na nyumba = near the house
• karibu na shule = near the school

So English speakers should learn karibu na as a unit meaning near.

Banda is a structure or enclosure for animals. Depending on context, it can mean things like:

• shed
• pen
• enclosure
• coop

In this sentence, since we are talking about a chicken, banda is naturally understood as the coop or the chicken pen.

Mpole means gentle, calm, docile, or mild.

The form mpole reflects singular animate agreement, which fits the hen in this sentence. Since the hen is being treated grammatically as a living being, the adjective follows that pattern.

Very roughly:

• singular animate: mpole
• plural animate: wapole

So if you were talking about several hens, you would expect a plural animate form.

Sana means very.

So:

• mpole = gentle
• mpole sana = very gentle

In Swahili, sana usually comes after the word it strengthens.

Examples:

• mzuri sana = very good / very nice
• kubwa sana = very big
• mpole sana = very gentle

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

Whether something is understood as a hen or the hen usually depends on context.

So:

• Kuku jike can mean a hen or the hen
• the relative clause ambaye yuko karibu na banda helps make it feel more specific, so in English the hen is often the best translation

English needs an article, but Swahili usually does not.

Yes, fairly similar.

The structure is:

• Kuku jike = the hen
• ambaye yuko karibu na banda = that is near the coop
• ni mpole sana = is very gentle

So the overall pattern is:

noun + relative clause + main description

That is close to English:

The hen that is near the coop is very gentle.

This makes the sentence a good example of how Swahili relative clauses can feel quite familiar to English speakers.