Verb prefixes
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The other prefix associated with each noun class is that used for verbs. We
will refer to these as verb prefixes, but they are also used for many other
grammatical objects (e.g. possessives, positions)
Verb prefixes have distinct singular and plural forms for nouns of all the
common classes
Because it is the class of animate beings (people and animals), the M/WA
class has six different verb prefixes, to incorporate 1st, 2nd and 3rd person in
both the singular (i.e. I, you, he/she) and the plural (i.e. we, you, they)
‘I have…’
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The present tense of the verb ‘to have’ is the simplest verb in Swahili. The
stem to which the verb prefixes are attached is simply -na.
In the M/WA class:
nina nywele nzuri – I have nice hair
una nywele nzuri – you have nice hair
ana nywele nzuri – he/she has nice hair
tuna nywele nzuri – we have nice hair
mna nywele nzuri – you (both/all) have nice hair
wana nywele nzuri – they have nice hair
Note the following points, which distinguish Swahili from English grammar:
 There is no gender (male/female) distinction of any kind in Swahili
grammar, i.e ‘he’ and ‘she’ (and later ‘him’, ‘her’, etc.) are expressed
in exactly the same way
 ‘You’ (2nd person) has distinct forms for singular and plural. (The
plural prefix, m-, is pronounced as a syllable of its own, taking stress.)
 The verb stem (in this case -na) never varies depending on who or
what is being talked about (or when), because changes in prefix (or
infix) are used for variations of person, tense etc. (Any change to a
verb stem would change the entire meaning of the verb.)
An important aside…
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While many words for animate beings are in the M/WA class, there are plenty
which are not (e.g. baba, kiongozi, mbwa, bibi, etc.)
ANY other grammatical objects (e.g. adjectives, quantities, verbs, etc.) used
with nouns for animate beings treat them as if they were in the M/WA class
(even if they are not) e.g. baba mkubwa (not kubwa), viongozi watatu (not
vitatu). That is, they use the verb and noun prefixes of the M/WA class in all
contexts (EXCEPT in pluralising the nouns, e.g. viongozi (not waongozi))
Other classes:
For the following example, note that miguu minne means ‘four legs’, mbwa (N)
means dog, meza (N) means table and kiti (KI/VI) means chair.
Mbwa ana miguu minne – the dog (he) has four legs
Meza ina miguu minne – the table (it) has four legs
Kiti kina miguu minne – the chair (it) has four legs
This shows you the singular verb prefixes for the N and KI/VI classes. Meanwhile,
mbwa, an N class noun, uses the verb prefix of the M/WA class, since it is an animate
being (as per the above).
(Note how the use of a subject noun, e.g mbwa, does not dispense of the need for the
subject pronoun (e.g. a-) like it does in English.)
In the plural:
Mbwa wana miguu minne – the dogs (they) have four legs
Meza zina miguu minne – the tables (they) have four legs
Viti vina miguu minne – the chairs (they) have four legs
Note the following:
 In the N class, while singular and plural noun prefixes are identical (and
therefore mbwa and meza don’t change), the singular and plural verb prefixes
are distinct
 In the KI/VI class, the verb prefixes are identical to the noun prefixes, in
both singular and plural
Finally, we draw up a table of the prefixes, which can be added to whenever you learn
a new noun class:
Class name
M/WA
N
KI/VI
Noun prefixes
Singular
Plural
mwa[Nasal - varies]
[Nasal -varies]
kivi-
Verb prefixes
Singular
Plural
ni-, u-, a- tu-, m-, waizikivi-
Remember that the noun prefixes are usually used to name the class.