SWAHILI CLUB ---- BEGINNERS" NOTES.

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)

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       – England

                                                Skotlandi        – Scotland

                                                Marekani       – America

                                                Ujerumani      – Germany

                                                Kenya             – Kenya

                                                Tanzania        – 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             tense                verb stem

   ni         +         na          +        soma                         = ninasoma (I am reading/studying)

   u          +         na          +        soma             = unasoma  (you are reading/studying)

   a          +         na          +        soma                         = anasoma  (he/she is reading/studying)

   tu         +         na          +        soma                         = tunasoma (we are reading/studying)

   m         +         na          +        soma                         = mnasoma  (you (pl) are reading/study)

   wa       +         na          +        soma                         = 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                                                          -hitaji – to need

-toka – to come from                                                  -jua – to know

-lala – to sleep                                                             -kumbuka – to remember

-fika – to arrive                                                           -sahau – to forget

-ondoka – to leave                                                      -ishi – to live

-taka – to want                                                           -shinda – to win

-penda – to love                                                         -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                   Sisi ni wazungu – We are white people!

Wewe ni mtoto – You are a child                  Nyinyi ni watoto – You are children

Yeye ni mwanafunzi – He is a student         Wao ni wanafunzi – They are students