Swahili, also known by its native name Kiswahili, is a Bantu language spoken by around 100 million people. It is widely used as a lingua franca in parts of Africa.
Test yourself on the Colours in Swahili.
Test yourself on the Swahili Fruit words.
Test youself on the Months.
Test yourself on the Numbers 1 to 10.
A quick learning game to test whether or not you really know the Swahili Numbers 1 to 20.
Test yourself on the Swahili Vegetables.
Swahili is an agglutinative language and has a very elegant system used to indicate the Subject (and Object) of a sentence. This is carried out using Subject Prefix's or markers which are attached to the verb.
Swahili verbs are often given in the stem form in dictionaries. An example ois 'lala' meaning 'sleep'. Various markers are then added or prefixed. An example is ku which is equivalent to the english infinitive. So, ku added to the verb stem gives the infinitive, and using sleep as the the example, 'kulala' means to sleep
Articles. Definite and indefinite articles do not exist in Swahili. Instead the meaning of a word within a sentence must be provided by the context. So 'mtoto' means 'child', 'a child' or 'the child'.
Nouns in Swahili have singular and plural.
Adjectives always come after and generally agree with the noun, so in Swahili 'good dog' is 'dog good'.
A few first words. 1, A few first words. 2, Bathroom items, Bedroom items, Buying thing. General phrases, Buyings things. Useful words, Countries, Communication problems, Conversation. Introductions, Conversation. Small talk. 1, Conversation. Filler words, Conversation. Small talk. Sport, Conversation. Small talk. The weather, Sport, Describing things. Adjectives, Days. General, Directions. 2, Eating phrases. 1, Eating phrases. 2, Eating items, Emergencies, Family, Food and drink. At the bar or café. 1, Food and drink. At the bar or café. 2, Food and drink. At the bar or café. 3, Getting around. General words, Getting around. General phrases, Getting around. Train and bus, Getting around by taxi, Getting around by car, Health, Money, Numbers. 11 to 20, Numbers. 30 to 1000, Parts of the body, Places and buildings. 1, Places and buildings. 2, Useful words, Question and size words, Special occasions, Sightseeing, Somewhere to stay. 1, Somewhere to stay. 2, The house, Useful words to recognize, Words to do with food. General, Words to do with food. Meat, Time, Clothing, Common nouns. 1, Common nouns. 2. Common nouns. 3.
Phrases by topic
The Swahili language. An outline of the Swahili language and its grammar.
Internet living Swahili dictionary. A non profit organization dedicated to creating a dictionary of Swahili
and other African languages.