Mtoto anakula papai kana kwamba hajawahi kula tunda hilo kabla.

Anakula can be broken down like this:

• a- = he/she for a singular human subject
• -na- = present/ongoing action
• kula = eat

So anakula means he/she is eating or sometimes he/she eats, depending on context.

In this sentence, it most naturally means is eating.

In Swahili, the subject is usually built into the verb.

So in anakula, the a- already tells you the subject is he/she. Because of that, you do not need a separate pronoun unless you want extra emphasis.

That is why Mtoto anakula... is enough for The child is eating...

Kana kwamba means as if or as though.

It introduces a comparison that is not necessarily true, but describes how something seems.

So:

• Mtoto anakula papai kana kwamba...
  = The child is eating papaya as if...

You may also see kama kwamba with a very similar meaning.

Hajawahi kula means he/she has never eaten.

It is a very common Swahili pattern:

• ha- = negative for he/she
• -jawahi- = has ever
• in the negative, it gives the idea has never ever
• kula = to eat

So hajawahi kula literally gives the sense he/she has never ever eaten.

This is stronger and more natural than just trying to say a simple negative. It is the standard way to express has never done something.

They do two different jobs:

• anakula = the main action in the sentence: is eating
• kula after hajawahi = an infinitive: to eat

So the structure is:

• Mtoto anakula papai = The child is eating papaya
• kana kwamba hajawahi kula tunda hilo kabla = as if he/she has never eaten that fruit before

This is normal in Swahili: after verbs like kuwahi, you often use another verb in the infinitive form.

Tunda hilo means that fruit.

• tunda = fruit
• hilo = that

Swahili often avoids repeating the exact same noun if a more general phrase works naturally. So instead of repeating papai, the sentence says tunda hilo, meaning that fruit or that particular fruit.

You could also hear papai hilo in some contexts, but tunda hilo sounds very natural here.

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

So:

• tunda hilo = that fruit
• not hilo tunda

This is a basic word-order difference from English.

Hilo agrees with tunda, not with English-style natural gender.

Tunda belongs to a noun class, and the demonstrative has to match that class.
So:

• tunda = singular fruit
• hilo = that for that noun class

This kind of agreement is very important in Swahili. Words that go with the noun often change form to match its class.

Kabla means before or previously.

At the end of this sentence, it gives the sense of before now or before this time.

So:

• hajawahi kula tunda hilo kabla
  = has never eaten that fruit before

English often needs before here, and Swahili uses kabla to express that same idea.

Swahili does not normally use articles like the and a/an.

So:

• mtoto can mean a child or the child
• papai can mean a papaya or the papaya, depending on context

The context tells you which meaning is intended. In this sentence, Mtoto is most naturally understood as the child, and papai as papaya or a papaya.

Mtoto just means child. It does not tell you whether the child is male or female.

Likewise, the verb form a- in anakula and hajawahi can mean he or she.

So the sentence is gender-neutral unless the wider context tells you more.

Papai is usually treated as a class 5 noun in the singular, and its plural is mapapai in class 6.

So:

• papai = papaya
• mapapai = papayas

This is useful because class membership affects agreement with other words, such as demonstratives and adjectives.

Yes. It follows a very natural pattern:

• Mtoto = subject
• anakula = verb
• papai = object
• kana kwamba... = subordinate clause giving comparison

So the structure is basically:

Subject + Verb + Object + as-if clause

That makes it a very good example of standard Swahili sentence building.