Swahili, also known as Kiswahili, is a Bantu language. It is a national language in four countries (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, The Democratic Republic of the Congo), and is a lingua franca in Southeast Africa, with around 60-150 million total speakers. It is an official language of the African Union.
External Resources[]
Introductory Resources
- https://www.ranker.com/list/lion-king-name-meanings/tamara-jude Details the many Swahili origins of the names of Lion King characters
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_9QfBSbw8g An introduction to Swahili on Youtube Langfocus channel. Provides information on grammar, origin/roots/influences and other general information.
Dictionaries and word resources (including their individual pronunciation)
- http://www.verbix.com/languages/swahili.shtml Swahili verb conjugator, enter the verb without the ku- infinitive; it's considered the base form of every verb
- http://africanlanguages.com/swahili/
- http://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-swahili/
- http://www.lexilogos.com/english/swahili_dictionary.htm
- http://www.bu.edu/200word/ Site with 200 words pronounced by native speakers in 8 different languages; Xhosa, Zulu, Amharic, Wolof, Hausa, Swahili, Igbo, and Akan Twi.
- http://forvo.com/languages/sw/ Forvo.com is a great website to hear native speakers of a language upload pronunciations of words in many different languages
General Youtube videos and channels
- https://www.youtube.com/user/SwahiliPod101/ SwahiliPod101 has a website as well. SwahiliPod101 has short and informative videos that teach you Swahili.
- https://www.youtube.com/user/kulmansam/ Teaches Swahili in his lessons, can elaborate on topics regarding Swahili and teaches a variety of topics; his website
- https://www.youtube.com/user/FCLangMedia/playlists There is a Swahili playlist on this channel with 50+ videos, it focuses mainly on grammar.
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPDzF0B97OtG-KPdCiw1IGSMlV4F4r9Iy Playlist for traditional stories in Swahili with subtitles.
Songs in Swahili
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_7fy-UiHfM Yemi Alade by Na Gode
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsINANZ6Riw Baba Yetu (The Lord's Prayer in Swahili) by Alex Boyé, BYU Men's Chorus & Philharmonic; lyrics by Christopher Tin
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLs4Tex0U1U Unconditionally Bae by Sauti Sol and Alikiba
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFu2wjQMM0Q Diamond Platnumz by Ntampata Wapi
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hUhYzjhusE Kenyan National Anthem Acapella; lyrics in video description
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7NtkwfAAuY Tanzanian National Anthem; lyrics in video description
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRRyAEddO6E The Jambo Bwana song, a catchy song that helps memorize some basic introductions and phrases in Swahili
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSk_M7d_OWM Diamond Platnumz by Utanipenda
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojvz49lSfM4 Sauti Sol by Kuliko Jana
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCh58peMl98=youtu.be=2m47s Classic song from 1974 Malaika by Miriam Makeba; both Swahili and English lyrics are included in the video
Popular/Useful sites for learning Swahili
- https://www.duolingo.com/course/sw/en/Learn-Swahili-Online the Duolingo Swahili course itself
- https://www.italki.com/ (sign-up is needed for access but it's free) 3 Swahili teachers there (refer specifically to https://www.italki.com/teachers; this is the only part that costs) and a small Swahili community who can edit your notebooks (refer specifically to https://www.italki.com/notebooks) and you can do language exchanges with Swahili speakers (refer specifically to https://www.italki.com/partners)
- http://www.pimsleur.com/learn-swahili?term=Swahili Fee required but 1st lesson is free. Pimsleur has a 30 minute course if you ask for a free lesson, and the system does not check whether your e-mail address is real if you only do so
- http://www.memrise.com/courses/english/swahili/ Numerous Swahili courses. Consider using this as a supplement to the others; Memrise can teach vocabulary lists effectively but might lack in grammar instruction
Books and Courses
- https://www.academia.edu/5595221/Colloquial_Swahili Colloquial Swahili book
- https://www2.ku.edu/~kiswahili/ University of Kansas course on Swahili, very good site.
- https://www.scribd.com/doc/23281558/Teach-Yourself-Swahili Teach yourself Swahili, basic course
- https://www.scribd.com/doc/38298467/Introduction-to-Swahili Intro to Swahili, another basic Swahili course
- https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Swahili Really incomplete Wikibooks guide containing very basic info on Swahili.
- http://learn101.org/swahili.php Swahili course with audio (audio is loud, turn down volume)
- http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi2/2_cult1a.htm PBS Swahili basic words and phrases
- http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED455681.pdf Another more extensive Swahili course, PDF file
- http://www.glcom.com/hassan/lessons/useful_swahili_words.html Basic swahili vocab
- http://www.africa.uga.edu/Kiswahili/doe/ Swahili pronunciation and grammar
- http://www.languagetransfer.org/complete-swahili Language transfer has 21 lessons on soundcloud teaching Swahili
News, podcasts and radio
- http://radiouganda.net/ Ugandan radio stations
- http://tunein.com/radio/Radio-One-897-s6419/ Tanzanian radio in Swahili
- http://www.kenyamoja.com/radio/ Swahili and English Kenyan radio stations, you can tell which language it is in by examining the words on their logos
- http://www.ippmedia.com/ Tanzania-based news website
- http://www.bbc.com/swahili BBC in Swahili
- http://sw.rfi.fr/ Swahili news site
Other/Miscellaneous
- http://www.jamiiforums.com/ Swahili foruma pretty active
- http://www.openlanguages.net/swahili Old website with basic Swahili vocab, some links are broken/blank
- http://www.masai-mara.com/mmsw.htm Basic Swahili phrasebook
- http://www.worldlanguage.com/Products/Swahili/Dictionary/Page1.htm Paid website to buy Swahili books
- http://www.voaswahili.com/programindex.html Swahili podcast
- http://www.dw.com/sw/idhaa-ya-kiswahili/s-11588 News in Swahili
- https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/fan-club-channel-8-newscaster-zhao-quanyin.4289845/page-8 [[
References[]
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/18971422 Duolingo comment detailing lots of Swahili resources. Most of the links listed above are taken from this comment
Swahili | |
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Swahili Skills | Introduction • Greetings 1 • Greetings 2 • People • Verbs:Present • Chores • M/Mi • Food • To Have • Verbs:Present 2 • Ki/Vi • N/N • Ji/Ma • Adjectives • Numbers • Commands • Clothing • Questions • U/N • Verbs:Present 3 • Animals • Shopping • Past • Time • Future • Past 2 • Body • Passive Verbs • Locations • Weather • Adverbs and Conjunctions • Object Inf. • Transport • Prepositions and Conjunctions • Adjectives 2 • Emotions • Demonstratives • School • Colors • Places • Conditional • Prep. Verbs • Medicine • Sports • Piga • Subjunctive • Spiritual • Politics • Reflexive Verbs • Science • Tourism • Causal Verbs • St. Verbs • Negative Conditional • Habitual • -Ka- • Conditional 2 • Holidays • Adverb Grammar • Relatives • Conditional Past • Comp. • Speech • Pluperfect • Participle • |