Planet Earth has seen its fair share of cultures around the world. Culture is unique in that it changes over time. Over the centuries some cultures have been too weak to take the pressure and have just faded away into history. Some however have lasted almost as long as earth itself. Certainly there have been very rich cultures in the world over the years. Think of the many communities in Africa that have cultures to die for; think of the ones in South America. Clearly the Swahili culture has had a remarkably wonderful track record. The Swahili culture has faced all sorts of challenges that seemed insurmountable. And for it to emerge without a scratch, albeit slightly mutated for the better…the world ought to recognize this as superb. Read More

Almost everyone has heard of the word “Jambo” which is a simple greeting in Swahili. But before I share with you some other really important greetings, first we have to go through our pronunciation guide once again (you honestly didn’t think I’d let you move on without this part, did you?). So here it is: Read More

In the next few minutes we’re going to learn how to construct a simple Swahili sentence. As you read every word of this tutorial, you will become really amazed at how simple the Swahili language actually is.

Construction 101:

No matter which language you look at, sentences generally have a verb in them. So we can generally agree that verbs are crucial in sentence construction.

In Swahili, verbs ALWAYS carry with them the subject and the tense. (Write that down and repeat it 3 times)

Example: “Ninacheza”

“Ninacheza” is actually a complete sentence which means “I am playing”.

Let’s deconstruct that sentence:

• The ‘Ni’ prefix stands for the subject “I”

• The -na- affix stands for “am” showing the tense i.e. the “present continuous” tense

• “cheza” is the root of the verb “play”

With that said, here’s a quick exercise:

Replace the verb “Cheza” with any of the following verbs to come up with your own sentence:

Example: nina____ (insert your verb here)

Congratulations! You’re now armed with the basic knowledge you need to construct a simple sentence for yourself.

The first thing you MUST do if you ever plan on being proficient at ANY language is to learn the correct pronunciation of words in that particular language.

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!

This is the first cheat-sheet I’ll be revealing to you…Numbers!

Before we go further, there are 2 specific rules I want to give you which you should apply whenever you come across a Swahili word. Read More