Photo by Bradley Feller on Unsplash
Ni rangi gani? What color is it?
Let’s start with colors: nyeusi black; nyeupe white; nyekundu red; buluu/samawati blue; njano yellow; kijani green; kahawia/hudhurungi brown; kijivu gray.
- Mbwa ni mweusi.
The dog is black. - Paka ni mweupe.
The cat is white. - Gari letu ni jeupe.
Our car is white.
*You may hear gari yetu in informal speech. - Miti ni ya kijani.
The trees are green.
GRAMMAR TIP! Did you notice that adjectives in Swahili take agreement prefixes that match the class of the noun that they describe? For instance, you saw in the list that nyeupe means white. But you saw the different forms in:
- Paka ni mweupe.
The cat is white. - Gari yetu ni nyeupe.
Our car is white.
For much more information on Swahili noun classes and adjective agreement, check out this post, and the series of posts on different noun classes that it links to.
Nzuri Sana! Very good!
Now let’s look at several other important basic adjectives: nzuri good; mbaya bad; kubwa big; ndogo small; rembo beautiful; sura mbaya ugly; mzee old; mpya new; refu long; fupi short; juu high; chini low; tupu empty; kamili full; pana wide; nyembamba narrow; ngumu hard; laini soft; ngumu difficult; rahisi easy.
- Mkahawa huu ni mzuri/mbaya.
This restaurant is good/bad. - Ni mkahawa mzuri.
It’s a good restaurant. - Wimbo huu ni mzuri/ mbaya.
This song is good/bad. - Filamu ni mzee/mpya.
The film is old/new. - Jiji ni rembo/kubwa.
The city is beautiful/big. - Mtaa ni pana/nyembamba.
The street is wide/narrow. - Kitanda ni kigumu/laini.
The bed is hard/soft. - Gilasi ni imejaa/tupu.
The glass is full/empty.
Do you want to learn Swahili?
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