"Which arm hurts?"

Translation: Mkono upi unauma?

[Ryuu385244]

Is it not correct to say "Unauma mkono upi?"?

[machieng]

no, if the subject is in the sentence, it comes first. 'Unauma mkono upi?' has a completely different meaning; it translates to 'which arm are you biting?'

[gloucester5]

Thanks for this explanation. Is there a rule which determines whether the sentence should go noun > -pi > verb or verb > noun > -pi? In some questions it wants one and some the other (eg. unataka kitabu kipi) and I can't figure out how to decide when to use each syntax! Thanks :)

[machieng]

In your example 'kitabu' is not the subject noun, you are (Unataka). It just depends on what the subject noun is and if there's an object or not. In both cases, the subject comes first - it'll ether be the noun being modified by the adjective, or it's a pronoun prefix and the noun being modified is the object

[Mercy982679]

Typo error should be considered