Some updates
March 24, 2010 by Admin · Leave a Comment
Lesson 2 has just been added, check it out. View all the lessons on the Swahili Text Course Page
Additionally we will start collecting information on Swahili schools and premium Swahili courses over the coming months.
Best regards
BYKI Swahili Home Study Software Review
March 24, 2010 by Admin · Leave a Comment
BYKI is one of the few premium language learning providers offering a Swahili Course. The course will not cover deep fundamentals or grammar structures of the Swahili language. However its a decent program to increase your vocabulary and basic Swahili. It is software so you will either need a pc or a mac to get it running.
Below some photos that give a bit of a impression what it has to offer:
On the first Photo you can see a example Swahili conversation
Below Show a nice tool to keep track of your progress
Below a activity shot to improve your Swahili pronunciation.
Below a list of the features:
- The most critical words and phrases
- Personalized learning sessions to speed your progress
- Images and native speaker sound
- Recognize spoken words
- Lock words and phrases into your permanent memory
- Maintain your knowledge with Intelligent Refresh
- Track your progress with comprehensive testing
- Perfect your accent with pronunciation practice
- Cement your knowledge with games and activities
- Learn thousands of extra words and phrases online at ListCentral
- Create and share word lists with users around the world
- MP3 audio for your iPod or other mobile player
- Printable flashcards
All in all if you fully complete this course and use it for practice you should be able to pick up 1000 swahili words and the most usefull Kiswahili sentences. If you have any questions about the BYKI Swahili software or if you have used it and want to share your thoughts please post in the comment section.
Learning Swahli Text Course
March 21, 2010 by Admin · Leave a Comment
Lesson 1 has now been uploaded of the Swahili Text Course.
Check out the first lesson on the Swahili alphabet and Swahili pronunciation
Further lessons will be updated frequently.
Swahili Common Converstation Vocabulary
September 3, 2009 by Admin · 3 Comments
Welcome = karibu
Thank you = asante sana
What is your name? = jina lako nani?
Bye and bye/so-so = kwaheri
God bless you = mungu akubariki
Praise the Lord! = bwana asifiwe
Howdy! = jambo!
Don’t worry = usiogope
Good morning = harari ya asabuhi Friend = rafiki
What is the news? = habari gani
Swahili Language & Culture on the net
September 3, 2009 by Admin · 1 Comment
Here are some interesting Swahili related posts i have found recently that i can recommend to check out:
-
Swahili Breakfast – Mandazi in the making – Mandazi are substantial snacks, popular in the coastal Swahili areas of Kenya and Tanzania – but I have found them all the way up through northern Uganda to Southern Sudan. Here people eat them for breakfast or as a snack with chai or kahawa.
-
World Next Door » Culture Guide: How to learn Swahili – Culture Guide: How to learn Swahili. Posted Jul 02 in Culture Guides by Jessica Shewan 5 Comments. Related Posts. » Culture Guide: Roadtrip! » Culture Guide: Surviving the Stares · » Culture Guide: Eating in Kibera! …
-
15 Ways to Find an Hour a Day of Extra Time…for Focused Learning – How can you carve out the hours needed to learn Swahili, master delta blues guitar, understand Aristotle’s view of ethics, or ______ (fill in one of your current areas of learning)? One of the easiest ways to find more time is by by …
Improving interaction with site visitors
September 1, 2009 by Admin · Leave a Comment
We are trying to improve the interaction with our visitors, hence we have implemented a Voting option.
The Voting option will come in handy with reviewing Swahili Schools, Swahili Courses etc.
Learning Swahili for Free Through Music – Jambo Bwana
August 29, 2009 by Admin · 4 Comments
Part of the Free Swahili Course we offer will be supplemented with some Swahili Music Videos. Its a fun way of expanding and reinforcing your Swahili vocabulary.
Here is the first music video
Swahili Pronounciation
August 29, 2009 by Admin · 1 Comment
Ive been asked by a loyal reader to give some more information about Swahili Pronunciation prior to our free Swahili course.
Swahili Pronunciation
The Swahili alphabet is identical to that of English, with the exception of X and Q, which do not exist. Most consonants have almost the same pronunciation as English. The vowels have specific pronunciation rules, which are never broken.
Swahili Vowel Sounds
a … Father
e … Egg
i … Bee
o … Door (be careful not to ‘close’ the o sound at the end, as in low)
u … Loop
Special Swahili Consonant Sounds
The following combination’s of consonants create specific sounds, some identical to the English equivalent.
dh … there (do not confuse with thanks)
th … thanks (do not confuse with there)
sh … shopping
ch … church (never charlatan or chemistry)
ng … jingles (do not confuse with sing)
ng’ … sing (do not confuse with jingles)
Note that whenever m is followed by another consonant, there is no vowel sound between the two letters. Similarly, when pronouncing a word beginning with m, the mouth should be closed to begin with – there should be no vowel sound before the m.
In Swahili, there are no silent letters, and neither do letters change pronunciation depending on spelling, as in English (compare cough and through). Each letter is pronounced individually, the same way every time. This rule is true for vowels as well as consonants.
Note that the consonant combination gh is generally pronounced like g, though technically it is similar to Scottish loch, but voiced.
Swahili Emphasis
The emphasis, or accent, is almost always placed on the second-to-last syllable of a word. The exceptions to this rule are extremely rare, and are usually found in words borrowed from other languages, mostly Arabic (for example, maalum).
In the case of doubled vowels or vowel combination’s, each vowel is a syllable in itself and is pronounced separately (for example, the word maalum actually has three syllables, as each ‘a’ is pronounced individually).
—————————-
Thank you for asking, please do not hesitate to use our contact form if you have any questions
Learn Swahili . net
Swahili Translation options
August 27, 2009 by Admin · Leave a Comment
Aside from the great living dictionary the Kamusi Project offers Google Translate has opened up its doors for Swahili translation.
It will still take some time before the Google tool, will be flawless as they usually start feeding the tool with official United Nations Documents. In time though the translations will get more accurate.
Head to translate.google.com and try for yourself. Additionally we will start working on implementing it right on our site.
LearnSwahili.net upcoming changes
August 26, 2009 by Admin · 1 Comment
Hi all,
some comment and question was sent recently:
You know what would be really great – if you did the Swahili word of the day!
I am anxiously waiting for the free course. Any update?
I really like the idea of a “swahili word of the day” – What topics would you like to get covered? Either send it through our contact form or post a comment on here.
We are still working on the free Swahili course at the moment, but as its taking too long we will soon launch the unedited version of it. You will not be dissapointed.
Best Regards,
Learn Swahili . net
Free Swahili Course
