Language/Swahili-individual-language/Grammar/Questions

swali / maswali - questions in Swahili

Hi Swahili Learners! 😃

➡ In today's lesson we will learn how to ask QUESTIONS in Swahili.

Happy learning!

Listed below are nine commonly used question words:

1. Je? – Well, how about?
2. Nani? – Who?
3. Nini? – What?
4. Lini? – When?
5. Wapi? – Where?
6. Vipi? – How?
7. -pi? – What?, Which?, or Where?
8. -ngapi? – How many?
9. Gani? – What?, What kind (of), How? or Which?

The majority of question words listed above can appear at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the sentence. The question word Gani? is the only one which appears either in the middle or at the end of the sentence but NEVER at the beginning of the sentence.

Question words in Swahili

swahili	English	Examples
Nani ? Yupi ?	Who?	Jina lako ni nani? What is your name? (literally ‘who is your name’?) Jina langu ni Amina.   My name is Amina.
Vipi?	How?	Vipi hali? How are you (literally ‘how is your state’?) Nzuri sana. Very well.
-je ?	How?	Unlike the other question words, ‘je’ is used as an affix of a verb, for example: Unasemaje? How do you say it? (people often say this if they didn’t hear you, in the sense of ‘what did you say?) Unajuaje? How do you know? Because the stress is (almost) always on the penultimate syllable of a word, this means that unajua becomes unajuaje, with the stress on the ‘a’ rather than the ‘u’.
Gani?	What type of?	Unafanya kazi gani? What (kind of work) do you do? Mimi ni mwalimu. I’m a teacher.
Nini ?	What?	Unafanya nini? What are you doing? Ninafanya kazi. I am working.
Ipi ?	Which?
Ngapi ? Kiasi gani ?	How many? How much?	Ni shillingi ngapi? How much is it?  (literally ‘how many shillings is it?’) Shillingi elfu tano.  5000 shillings. Ngapi is the only question word which changes form to agree with the class of the noun it describes. So you would ask ‘watoto wangapi?’ (how many children) or ‘miaka mingapi?’ (how many years). Don’t worry about this for now, and just use ‘ngapi’ until you learn the correct form with each noun class.
Ni bei gani ? Ni bure	What is the price? It's free
Wapi ?	Where?	Unatoka wapi? Where do you come from? Ninatoka Uganda. I come from Uganda.
Lini ?	When?
Kwa nini ? Mbona ?	Why?	Kwa nini unasoma Kiswahili? Why are you learning Swahili?
Kwa sababu ...	Because ...	Kwa sababu ninataka kuishi Tanzania. Because I want to live in Tanzania.
jibu / majibu	the answer(s)

Examples

More Examples

Below is a list of the Questions and interrogative expressions in Swahili placed in a table. Memorizing this table will help you add very useful and important words to your Swahili vocabulary.

English Questions	Swahili Questions
where is he?	yuko wapi?
what is this?	ni kitu gani?
why are you sad?	mbona una huzuni?
how do you want to pay?	wataka kulipa vipi?
can I come?	naweza kuja?
is he sleeping?	amelala?
do you know me?	wanijua?
do you have my book?	je, una kitabu changu?
how big is it?	waweza kueleza ukubwa wake?
can I help you?	ninaweza kukusaidia?
can you help me?	Unaweza kunisaidia?
do you speak English?	Waongea kiingereza
how far is this?	waweza kueleza umbali wake?
what time is it?	ni saa ngapi?
how much is this?	ni kiasi gani?
what is your name?	Jina lako?
where do you live?	Unaishi wapi?

Sources

• https://hist.hse.ru/data/2019/06/14/1486229732/16.%20Question%20Words,%20Phrases%20and%20Statements.pdf
• http://lang.swahili.free.fr/index_uk.php
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfHHN0s2F9Q
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCT9lPCWueM
• http://mylanguages.org/swahili_questions.php