Ubaguzi ni mbaya.

Roughly:

• Ubaguzi → oo-bah-GOO-zee
• ni → nee
• mbaya → m-BAH-yah

A few helpful pronunciation notes:

• Swahili words are usually stressed on the second-to-last syllable. So the stress is on -gu- in ubaguzi and on mba- in mbaya.
• In mbaya, the mb is pronounced together. Do not insert a full vowel before it. It is closer to m-BAH-yah than mu-baya.

Here ni is the copula, meaning is/are.

So the pattern is:

X ni Y = X is Y

In this sentence:

• Ubaguzi = the subject
• ni = is
• mbaya = bad

A useful thing to know is that this ni does not change for singular or plural in this kind of sentence.

Swahili normally does not use articles like English a, an, or the.

So Ubaguzi ni mbaya naturally means something like:

• discrimination is bad
• the discrimination is bad

The exact sense depends on context. In a general statement like this, it is usually understood as discrimination is bad.

In Swahili, descriptive words usually come after the noun they relate to.

For example, in noun phrases:

• mtu mzuri = a good person
• kitabu kikubwa = a big book

In Ubaguzi ni mbaya, mbaya comes after ni because it is the predicate adjective:

• ubaguzi = discrimination
• ni mbaya = is bad

So the overall structure is very normal for Swahili.

The basic adjective stem is -baya, and Swahili often adds a noun-class agreement prefix to adjective stems.

With ubaguzi, the correct form here is mbaya.

This is one reason Swahili adjectives can look a little different depending on the noun they describe. Learners often find it easiest at first to memorize the full form they see in sentences, such as mbaya, mzuri, mkubwa, and so on.

Ubaguzi is an abstract noun in class 14, which often has the prefix u-.

Many abstract ideas in Swahili are in this class, for example words connected with qualities, states, or concepts.

This matters because noun class can affect agreement in Swahili, including adjective forms. In this sentence, it helps explain why the adjective appears as mbaya.

You do not need to master all noun classes immediately, but it is useful to notice that u- often signals an abstract concept.

Mbaya is a broad word. Depending on context, it can mean:

• bad
• evil
• harmful
• unpleasant
• severe
• poor/unwell

In this sentence, it clearly means morally bad or wrong.

So the exact shade of meaning comes from context, not just from the word by itself.

You replace ni with si:

Ubaguzi si mbaya.

Grammatically, that means Discrimination is not bad.

So:

• ni = is
• si = is not

This is a very common and useful pattern in Swahili.

You can often make it a question just by using question intonation:

Ubaguzi ni mbaya?

You can also add Je, at the beginning for a clearer written question:

Je, ubaguzi ni mbaya?

Both are natural ways to ask Is discrimination bad?

Yes. It is related to the verb kubagua, meaning to discriminate or to single out / treat differently.

So the sentence contains:

• ubaguzi = discrimination
• related verb: kubagua = to discriminate

This is a common pattern in Swahili: a noun with u- can be related to a verb or a quality.

You can add sana, which means very:

Ubaguzi ni mbaya sana.

This is one of the easiest ways to strengthen an adjective in Swahili:

• mbaya = bad
• mbaya sana = very bad