SWAHILI CLUB – BEGINNERS’ NOTES
PRONUNCIATION
Handily, the Swahili alphabet is essentially the same as our own, and all Swahili
words are very phonetic. One thing to note is that the stress of each word always goes
on the penultimate syllable e.g. asANte (meaning thank you) or karIbu (meaning
welcome).
‘Swahili’ in Swahili = Kiswahili
GREETINGS
If you have been to East Africa before you will have undoubtedly heard ‘jambo’
being used as ‘hello’. In fact this is a very touristy way of greeting someone! The
correct form is:
Hujambo – with the reply being sijambo.
Or, if talking to more than one person:
Hamjambo – with the reply being hatujambo.
A more informal way of greeting people would be Mambo! Or Vipi! Or even
Mambo vipi!, to which there are endless ways of replying, the most common being:
poa – cool
safi – great (safi sana – lit. very great)
poa kichizi kama ndizi – cool crazy like a banana!
mzuka – this has no literal meaning but is heard in response to Mambo around the
Arusha area of Tanzania
Habari? is one way of saying ‘How are you?’ but can be used with several other
words to mean ‘How is…?’ :
Habari gani? – How are you?
Habari yako? – How are you? (to one person only)
Habari zenu? – How are you? (to more than one person)
Habari za kazi? – How’s work?
Habari za familia? – How’s your family?
Habari za leo? – How’s your day? (lit. how is today?)
Habari za asubuhi? – How’s your morning? (often used to mean ‘Good morning’)
etc…
The most likely responses to ‘habari’ questions are:
nzuri – fine
njema – great
salama – lit. peaceful
safi - great
Karibu – Welcome (to one person)
Karibuni – Welcome (to more than one person)
Asante – thank you (to one person)
Asante sana – thank you very much
Asanteni – thank you (to more than one person)
Note how the stress changes
between karibu and karibuni
(or asante and asanteni)
accordin to which is the
penultimate syllable
Kwaheri – good bye (to one person)
Kwaherini – good bye (to more than one person)
Shikamoo – lit. ‘My respects!’ and is a polite way to greet someone who is older/of a
higher social status e.g. children would say it to their teacher at the start of the day
(but only once at the start of the day!)
The correct response is Marahaba.
You are most likely to hear Shikamoo – Marahaba in Tanzania and on the coast of
Kenya.
INTRODUCTORY PHRASES
Jina lako nani? – What is your name? (lit. jina = name, lako = your, nani = who)
Jina langu… - My name is… (lit. jina = name, langu = my)
Unatoka wapi? – Where are you from?
Ninatoka… - I come from…
Uingereza
Skotlandi
Marekani
Ujerumani
Kenya
Tanzania
– England
– Scotland
– America
– Germany
– Kenya
– Tanzania
Unaishi wapi? – Where do you live?
Ninaishi… - I live… (no need for ‘in’ in this situation e.g. ninaishi London = I live
in London)
Umezaliwa wapi? – Where were you born?
Nimezaliwa… - I was born in…
Note that in Swahili the question word always goes at the end of the sentence, e.g. in
‘unatoka wapi?’, wapi means ‘where’.
CONSTRUCTING VERBS
Constuctingverbs in Swahili is a bit like playing with Lego – you just add bits
together and see what happens! As you will see, changing tense is surprisingly
simple.
A constructed verb consists of three parts – the person/thing that is doing the verb, the
tense, and what is known as the ‘verb stem’. In Swahili, all infinitives (i.e. to do, to
play, to see) start with ku- e.g.
kufanya – to do
kucheza – to play
kuona – to see
Since all verbs start with the same two letters, this would make looking them up in the
dictionary somewhat impractical! So instead we use the ‘verb stem’ which is
essentially the verb minus the ‘ku-‘…e.g.
-fanya – to do
-cheza – to play
-ona – to see
It is this, the verb stem, that is used when constructing verbs, and is therefore the most
important part of the verb.
Below is an example of a constructed verb using –soma i.e. to read/study.
Subject
ni
u
a
tu
m
wa
+
+
+
+
+
+
tense
na
na
na
na
na
na
+
+
+
+
+
+
verb stem
soma
soma
soma
soma
soma
soma
= ninasoma (I am reading/studying)
= unasoma (you are reading/studying)
= anasoma (he/she is reading/studying)
= tunasoma (we are reading/studying)
= mnasoma (you (pl) are reading/study)
= wanasoma (they are reading/studying)
From this you can see that the subject markers are as follows:
ni – I
u – you (singular)
a – he/she
tu – we
m – you (plural)
wa – they
And that the marker for the present tense = na
So you can see how easy it would be to change tense once you know what the
markers for the other tenses are.
The tense marker for the future tense = ta
e.g. nitasoma = I will read/study
The tense marker for the past tense = li
e.g. nilisoma = I read/studied
The tense marker me is a difficult one to define. It has been described as the past
continuous tense (i.e. something that happened and is still happening) however this
definition does not always make sense! You will learn that some verbs tend to take
me and most don’t, so don’t worry too much about this tense! Here are some
examples of the tense marker me being used:
Nimezaliwa – I was born (in)
-zaliwa = to be born
Umechoka – You are tired
-choka = to be tired
Ameshiba – He/she is full
-shiba = to be full
It should be fairly straightforward for you to construct verbs now, the only thing you
need to know is the Swahili for the verb stems. Here are some useful verbs:
-rudi – to return
-toka – to come from
-lala – to sleep
-fika – to arrive
-ondoka – to leave
-taka – to want
-penda – to love
-hitaji – to need
-jua – to know
-kumbuka – to remember
-sahau – to forget
-ishi – to live
-shinda – to win
-shindwa – to lose
There are a few verbs in Swahili that are constructed slightly differently, in that they
keep the ku- that would come before the verb stem. These verbs are known as the
monosyllabic verbs because the verb stem has only one syllable, e.g.
-la – to eat
-ja – to come
-nywa – to drink
-enda – to go (although this stem
has two syllables, it acts as a monosyllabic verb!)
Here are some examples of constructed monosyllabic verbs:
Ninakula ndizi – I am eating a banana/bananas
Watakuja kesho – They will come tomorrow
Tulikunywa pombe – We drank beer
Anakwenda Nairobi – He/she is going to Nairobi
It is easy to change he/she to someone’s name, e.g.
Joe anakwenda Nairobi – Joe is going to Nairobi
or
Joe na Fred wanatoka Uingereza – Joe and Fred come from England
‘TO BE’
The verb ‘to be’ is fairly complex in Swahili. We will deal with the other tenses later,
but for now the present tense is constructed in a completely different way to the verbs
we have looked at so far. Essentially, in the present tense, the word ‘ni’ means is or
are interchangeably, e.g.
Joe ni mwalimu – Joe is a teacher
Amy ni Mwingereza – Amy is English
The words for I, you, he/she etc., when used in this situation, are as follows:
mimi – I
wewe – you (singular)
yeye – he/she
sisi – we
nyinyi – you (plural)
wao – they
And therefore:
Mimi ni Mkenya – I am Kenyan
Wewe ni mtoto – You are a child
Yeye ni mwanafunzi – He is a student
Sisi ni wazungu – We are white people!
Nyinyi ni watoto – You are children
Wao ni wanafunzi – They are students