Most people tend to think that Swahili is only a language. Well, not really…you see, Swahili is a culture and a very rich one while at it. A little known manuscript called “The Periplus of Erythrean Sea” suggests the evidence of Swahili back to around 2^nd Century AD. Not too much is known about this document, however, and most people have preferred to stick with more recent documents dating back to around the year 1711.

And against all odds Swahili has risen to the top..heck, even Hollywood is using it. Check out Lion King, The Simpson’s, Buffy…need I say more?

People often make the mistake of trying to learn a foreign language with their own accent. This ends up frustrating you as the learner. I’m going to reveal to you all the Swahili pronunciation rules you’ll need on your journey to become a fluent Swahili speaker. The farther down this page you read, you’ll start to feel and understand exactly how words are pronounced in Swahili, and by the end of this post you’ll be able to pronounce them perfectly by yourself.

FACT: The Swahili alphabet is identical to that of English, with the exception of X and Q, which do not exist.

Vowels: Swahili vowels have specific pronunciation rules which are never broken. Here is how they are to be pronounced:

‘a‘ as in ‘Father’

‘e‘ as in ‘Elephant’

‘i‘ as in ‘Bee‘

‘o‘ as in ‘Floor’

‘u‘ as in ‘Loop’

Consonants: Most Swahili consonants have the same pronunciation as English consonants. Special attention must however be paid to these three:

f – Pronounced as in “fat” (not “of”)

g – Pronounced as in “glad” (not “gym”)

s – Pronounced as in “sweet” (not “easy”)

CONSONANT COMBINATIONS:

There some ’special’ consonant sounds which come about when you join two consonants together. Although these sounds comprise of two different consonants, they must be produced as ONE sound, not two.

The following consonant combinations create specific sounds, some identical to the English equivalent. Study them carefully:

dh as in ‘that’ (don’t confuse with ‘thank’) e.g. dhani (which means ‘think”)

th as in ‘thank’ (don’t confuse with ‘that’) e.g. thelathini (which means “thirty”)

sh as in ‘shopping’ e.g. ishirini (which means “twenty”)

ch as in ‘Church’ (not ‘Chemical’) e.g. chakula (which means “food”)

ng as in ‘finger’ (not ’sing’) e.g. panga (which means “machete”)

ng’ as in ’sing‘ (not ‘finger’) e.g. ng’ombe (which means “cow”)

See yourself mastering these basic rules and you’ll literally become unstoppable!

Swahili is arguably the easiest language in the world to learn. But of late I’ve been receiving a lot of questions about how to say “Romantic” words like “I love you” or “You’re beautiful” in Swahili. Before I do so, let me just come clean right now and say that I downright wouldn’t put Swahili and French on the same level in terms of “Romantic Appeal”.

Now before I get flamed me in the comments section, let me justify my argument concerning “Romantic Appeal” of a language:

• It relies ALOT on what the media has made people to believe. The reason we think French is such a romantic language is simply because time after time Movie Directors have shoved it down our throats: Candle light dinners in Paris; Romantic French couples…you get the point. I bet if the first ever romance movie was in Japanese…ok let’s not go there, but I think you see my point.

• It depends more on the speaker, rather than the language itself. I have a couple of French buddies who are pretty cool…but when it comes to the ladies, they’re just about as smooth as a pile of broken glass…and that’s on their best day

All in all though its pretty fair to say that Swahili is a fairly romantic language. Statistics show that a couple thousand people Google the words “Nakupenda” (I love you) and “Mrembo” (Beautiful) each month. So I’d probably rate it 6.5 out of 10 on the “Romance-O-Meter”. But in terms of how fast you can actually learn Swahili as compared to any other language, probably 9/10.