Bibi anaishi magharibi mwa kijiji.

Because Swahili verbs normally include a subject marker even when the full subject noun is also said.

So in Bibi anaishi:

• Bibi = the subject noun
• a- = he/she subject marker on the verb

This is normal Swahili structure. English usually does not do this, but Swahili does.

Anaishi can be broken down like this:

• a- = he/she
• -na- = present tense / ongoing present
• -ishi = live, reside

So anaishi means he/she lives or he/she is living.

It can mean either, depending on context.

With the verb -ishi (to live/reside), English often translates it as lives:

• Bibi anaishi hapa = Grandmother lives here

But in some contexts, is living can also work:

• Anaishi Dar es Salaam kwa sasa = She is living in Dar es Salaam for now

So -na- is flexible in English translation.

Not exactly. Magharibi is a direction word meaning west or the western side. In Swahili, direction words like this often combine with mwa to make expressions such as:

• magharibi mwa = west of
• mashariki mwa = east of
• kaskazini mwa = north of
• kusini mwa = south of

So it is best to learn magharibi mwa as the pattern meaning west of.

Here, mwa links the direction word to the place used as the reference point.

So:

• magharibi = west
• mwa kijiji = of the village

Together:

• magharibi mwa kijiji = west of the village

For learners, the easiest approach is to remember the whole chunk magharibi mwa.

Because after these direction expressions, standard Swahili uses mwa.

So you say:

• magharibi mwa kijiji
• mashariki mwa mji
• kaskazini mwa Tanzania

This is the normal idiomatic pattern. Even if ya or wa may seem tempting to an English speaker trying to build the phrase word by word, mwa is the form used here.

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

That means:

• bibi can mean a grandmother, the grandmother, or just grandmother
• kijiji can mean a village or the village

The exact meaning comes from context. English needs articles much more often than Swahili does.

The basic order is:

• Bibi = subject
• anaishi = verb
• magharibi mwa kijiji = place/location phrase

So the pattern is basically:

Subject + Verb + Location

That is a very common and natural Swahili sentence order.

You keep the same pattern and change the direction word:

• mashariki mwa kijiji = east of the village
• kaskazini mwa kijiji = north of the village
• kusini mwa kijiji = south of the village
• magharibi mwa kijiji = west of the village

So you can build similar sentences like:

• Bibi anaishi mashariki mwa kijiji
• Bibi anaishi kusini mwa kijiji

A rough English-style guide is:

BEE-bee ah-nah-EE-shee mah-ghah-REE-bee mwah kee-JEE-jee

A few useful points:

• Swahili pronunciation is usually very regular.
• Stress is usually on the second-to-last syllable of each word.
• mwa sounds roughly like mwah.
• In magharibi, the gh is often pronounced as a softer throat sound, but many learners approximate it with a g sound and are still understood.