← Back to lesson 1: Karibu! Introduction to Swahili (Jambo, Habari)
Introduction to Swahili
Work through this at your own pace. Read each question in English, answer in Swahili. Nothing is marked, so guess freely.
By the end of this lesson you will be able to
- Understand a short history of Swahili and where it comes from
- Read the Swahili alphabet and syllable sounds
- Recognise the sounds that are unique to Swahili
- Pronounce Swahili words with the stress in the right place
Swahili, or Kiswahili?
People use both, and both are right. It is Swahili when you are speaking English, and Kiswahili when you are speaking Swahili. The ki- at the front is the piece Swahili adds to the name of a language.
QYou are speaking Swahili to a friend. Which word do you use for the language?
Choose one.
Where the language comes from
Swahili belongs to the Bantu family of African languages, spoken across eastern, central and southern Africa. Different countries and regions have their own dialects, but the meaning stays the same.
The word Swahili itself means coast. It came from early Arab traders visiting the East African coast. Because the language grew around trade, it has borrowed generously from Arabic, Persian, Kutchi (Indian) and English.
QWhat does the word “Swahili” originally mean?
The alphabet
Good news: Swahili uses the same alphabet you already know. There are two things to remember.
1. Only 24 letters are used. Q and X do not appear in Swahili words.
2. The letter C never travels alone. It is always joined to H to make CH, as in chai (tea).
QWhich two letters are not used in Swahili?
The five vowels
These five sounds carry the whole language. Get them right and you will be understood almost anywhere. Every vowel is short and clean, and it never changes its sound.
QType the Swahili word for mango.
Spelling only, no capital letter needed.
Show me the answer
Building syllables
Swahili is built from tidy consonant plus vowel blocks. Once you can say one row, you can say hundreds of words. Tap any block to mark the ones you have practised out loud.
A memory trick for the tricky ones
Where the stress falls
This is the single most useful rule in the lesson. Break a word into syllables, then lean on the second to last one. Every time. No exceptions to memorise.
QIn the word ka-la-mu (pen), which syllable do you stress?
QNow you try. In ha-ba-ri (news), type the syllable you stress.
Show me the answer
Sounds that are new to you
Six sound pairs do not behave the way English spelling suggests. Learn these and almost nothing in Swahili will catch you out.
These two share a family of sounds, softer than an English “t”.
dha-ha-bu gold
the-ma-ni-ni eighty
Also a shared pair. Few words start with KH, and most that do are people’s names.
kha-mis a name
gha-li expensive
With the apostrophe. The sound at the end of “singer”, not “finger”.
ng'o-mbe cow
Without the apostrophe, the g is sounded properly.
nga-mi-a camel
Exactly the middle of the word “lanyard”.
nyu-mba house
The only place C ever appears, as you met in Part 3.
cha-i tea
QWhich word uses the sound at the end of “singer”?
Hard consonants, and the rolling R
B, D, G and J are pronounced harder than in English. Say them firmly rather than softly.
Put it all together
Six real words using everything above. Say each one out loud, stressing the second to last syllable, then check yourself.
QSomeone helps you with your bags. Type what you say in Swahili.
Show me the answer
QA friend greets you with Habari? What are they asking?
Making Swahili stick
Swahili is written the way it is spoken. Once the sounds are secure, reading becomes easy. That is why we start here rather than with vocabulary.
Borrowed words behave differently. Words taken from Arabic, Persian or English do not always follow Bantu grammar. Ask when something looks odd; it usually is.
Listen to native speakers often. Music, radio and film will do more for your ear than any amount of reading.
Hongera! Lesson 1 complete
You can now read the alphabet, sound out any syllable, place the stress correctly and handle the sounds unique to Swahili. Take the quiz to lock it in, then read the everyday words in Part 9 out loud once more before you move on.
Continue to the quiz →