"Yeye ni mpishi?"

Translation: Is she a cook?

[BobJoeBuilder]

How do you tell the difference between definite (the cook) and indefinite (a cook) nouns?

[ngwarai]

You cannot because that concept (a, the ) does not exist in Swahili or any Bantu languages.

[Drasher]

As far as I can tell, it's just contextual.

[ahun00]

You can point to a specific cook, like mpishi yule (this cook)

[Ivoryblossum]

I cannot keep the second and third person words straight, aside from "sisi." For example, I am always thinking "yeye" is one of the "you"s. Does anyone have any tips?

[Ciderr]

But Yeye can be used towards men too? So it goes both ways?

[Leilah683722]

Is yeye ni mpishi not 'she/he is a cook' I'm told here it's is she a cook?

[Ivoryblossum]

It is both, the difference is the question mark. With the question mark, "yeye ni mpishi?" can be either "he is a cook?" or "Is he a cook?" because we can phrase this same question different ways in English.