Swahili I

The big picture

If you have watched a lion cub sing about having no worries, you have already spoken Swahili. Simba is the Swahili word for lion. Rafiki means friend. Hakuna matata is an ordinary sentence meaning there are no troubles. Safari means journey, and English borrowed it whole. So did jenga, which is the command form of the verb kujenga, to build. You are not starting this course at zero; you are starting it with a handful of words already in your pocket, which is a fair sign of how far this language has traveled.

Kiswahili, the language's own name for itself, is the largest African language by number of speakers and the closest thing the continent has to an internal lingua franca. Estimates of the total vary because counting second-language speakers is genuinely hard, but the African Union and UNESCO both work with a figure above 200 million. Here is the striking part: only a small fraction of those, perhaps fifteen to twenty million, grew up speaking it as a first language. The vast majority learned it as a second language, on purpose, in order to trade, study, govern, worship, listen to the radio, and talk to people whose home language is not theirs. Kiswahili is a language people choose.

That fact is good news for you. A language carried mostly by second-language speakers develops a tolerance for accents, a wide margin for imperfect grammar, and a plain, workable core that gets you understood fast. Native speakers in Zanzibar will hear your foreign vowels and answer you anyway, because they hear foreign vowels all day from Ugandans and Congolese too.

Today we do four things: place Swahili in its language family, tour the map of where it is spoken, walk the coastal history that made it what it is, and open the vocabulary drawer where the Arabic, Portuguese, German, and English borrowings live. We finish with your first real words.

A Bantu language: the family portrait

Kiswahili belongs to the Bantu group, a set of roughly five hundred closely related languages spread across the southern third of Africa, from Cameroon down to South Africa and east to Kenya. Bantu languages sit inside the much larger Niger-Congo family, the largest language family in Africa and one of the largest in the world. Swahili's nearer relatives include Zulu, Xhosa, Shona, Kikuyu, Lingala, and Luganda, and the family resemblance is real: the Bantu word for person shows up as mtu in Swahili, umuntu in Zulu, and muntu in Lingala, and the word Bantu itself comes from the plural of that root, meaning simply the people.

What makes a language Bantu is not its vocabulary but its architecture. Three features define it, and all three will occupy you this semester.

• Noun classes. Every noun belongs to one of about fifteen classes, marked by a prefix on the front of the word. This replaces the gender systems of European languages and does far more work than they do. It is the central grammatical fact of Swahili, and Module 3 gives it three full lessons.
• Agreement chains. The noun's class stamps itself onto everything that refers to it: adjectives, numbers, possessives, demonstratives, and the verb. A sentence in Swahili rhymes with itself.
• Agglutinative verbs. A Swahili verb is built like a train: who does it, when, to whom, and what, all clipped onto a single root. Ninakupenda is one word meaning I love you.

Within Bantu, Swahili sits in a coastal subgroup often called Sabaki, alongside languages such as Mijikenda and Comorian, spoken up and down the shore of the Indian Ocean and on its islands.

Key idea: Kiswahili is a Bantu language of the Niger-Congo family, and its Bantu inheritance is structural: noun classes, agreement chains, and verbs built by stacking prefixes onto a root.

Where Kiswahili lives

Draw a rough oval from the Indian Ocean coast inland across the African Great Lakes and you have the Swahili world. In Tanzania it is the national language and the medium of primary education, spoken by essentially everyone in a country of well over a hundred distinct ethnic languages. In Kenya it is both the national language and, with English, an official one. Uganda made it an official language alongside English in 2005 and has repeatedly pushed to expand it in schools. Rwanda adopted it as an official language in 2017, its fourth. In the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where a distinct variety often called Kingwana is used, Swahili is one of the country's four national languages, and the streets of Goma, Bukavu, and Lubumbashi run on it.

Beyond that core it is widely used in Burundi, northern Mozambique, the Comoros, southern Somalia, Malawi, and Zambia. South Africa began offering it as an optional school subject in 2020. It is an official language of the East African Community and of the Southern African Development Community, and in February 2022 the African Union adopted it as an official working language, the only indigenous African language with that status. In November 2021 UNESCO declared 7 July as World Kiswahili Language Day, the first day the organization has dedicated to an African language. If you have wondered whether this is a serious language to study, that is your answer.

Key idea: Kiswahili is official or national in five countries, widely used in several more, and the working African language of the African Union, the East African Community, and a UNESCO observance day.

The coast that named the language

The name tells the story. Kiswahili comes from the Arabic word sawahil, the plural of sahil, meaning coast. Kiswahili is, literally, the language of the coasts. The people are the Waswahili, and the culture and coastline are Uswahili. Notice the prefixes already at work: ki- for the language, wa- for the people, u- for the place and the abstraction. You will meet all three again in Module 3.

Bantu-speaking farmers and fishers settled the East African coast in the first millennium of the common era, and by roughly the eighth century their towns were plugged into the greatest trade network of the pre-modern world. The Indian Ocean has a gift no other ocean offers: monsoon winds that reverse with the season. The northeast monsoon, the kaskazi, blew ships down from Arabia, Persia, and India between December and March; the southeast monsoon, the kusi, blew them home again. Merchants therefore lived on the coast for months at a time, married into local families, and traded gold, ivory, timber, and enslaved people for cloth, beads, and porcelain.

Out of that traffic grew a chain of stone city-states: Lamu and Pate, Malindi and Mombasa, Kilwa Kisiwani, Zanzibar. The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta reached Kilwa in 1331 and called it one of the finest cities he had seen. Chinese porcelain turns up in its rubbish heaps. In 1498 Vasco da Gama arrived, and Portugal spent the next two centuries fighting for the coast, leaving Fort Jesus at Mombasa behind. Then came Oman: in 1840 Sultan Seyyid Said moved his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar, which became the hub of a clove and slave economy whose caravans pushed deep inland.

Those caravans are why you can be understood in Kigoma and Kisangani today. Nineteenth-century trade routes carried Swahili a thousand miles from the sea as the language of the road. Then the German and British colonial administrations, and the mission schools, adopted it for administration and teaching because it was already there, and spread it further still. After independence, Julius Nyerere made Kiswahili the language of Tanzanian nationhood, a deliberate choice to build one country out of many peoples without privileging any single ethnic group or the language of the departing empire. He also translated Shakespeare into it, twice.

Key idea: Kiswahili grew on the Indian Ocean trading coast, spread inland along nineteenth-century caravan routes, was adopted by colonial administrations, and then became a deliberate instrument of national unity after independence.

A Bantu frame with an Arabic vocabulary

Centuries of that contact left a mark you cannot miss. Modern standard Swahili takes somewhere in the range of a sixth to a fifth of its everyday vocabulary from Arabic, and classical Swahili poetry takes far more. But, and this is the point people miss, the grammar stayed Bantu. Arabic gave Swahili thousands of nouns; it did not give it a single noun class, verb template, or agreement rule. English is in the same position with respect to French: a Germanic skeleton wearing a Romance coat.

Swahili	English	Source
kitabu	book	Arabic kitab
safari	journey, trip	Arabic safar
habari	news	Arabic khabar
saa	hour, clock, watch	Arabic saa
lakini	but	Arabic lakin
sababu	reason	Arabic sabab
meza	table	Portuguese mesa
bendera	flag	Portuguese bandeira
shule	school	German Schule
baiskeli	bicycle	English bicycle
kompyuta	computer	English computer

Read that table again as a history lesson rather than a word list. The Arabic words are the oldest and the deepest, covering trade, time, learning, and religion. The Portuguese words date from the sixteenth and seventeenth century occupation and cluster around household and shipboard objects. The single most useful German word, shule, is a souvenir of German East Africa before 1918, and it competes to this day with the English-derived skuli in Kenya. The English layer is the newest and the fastest growing, and it obeys Swahili's own sound rules rather than English ones, as you will see in the next lesson: bicycle has to become baiskeli because Swahili syllables end in vowels.

Key idea: Swahili's grammar is entirely Bantu while a large share of its vocabulary is borrowed, mostly from Arabic and more recently from English, and every borrowing is reshaped to fit Swahili sound patterns.

What Swahili asks of you, and what it gives back

Every language charges admission somewhere, so here is the bill, honestly itemized. Swahili will ask three things of you. First, the noun classes: you must learn which class a noun belongs to, because that choice ripples through the whole sentence. Second, agreement: adjectives, numbers, possessives, and verbs all have to be dressed in the right prefix, and beginners spend real effort here. Third, a habit of building words from parts rather than looking them up whole, since one Swahili verb can carry what English needs five words to say.

Now the refunds, and they are generous. There is no tone, unlike most West African languages and unlike Chinese. There are no articles: no a, no the, ever. There is no grammatical gender, and indeed the pronoun yeye means he or she indifferently. The spelling is regular to a degree English speakers find almost suspicious: with a handful of digraphs, one letter is one sound, always. Stress is predictable and falls on the next to last syllable of nearly every word. The verb has no irregular conjugations worth the name; the tense markers are four small syllables that never change shape. And the alphabet is the one you are reading right now.

Key idea: Swahili trades a demanding noun class and agreement system for no tone, no articles, no gender, regular spelling, predictable stress, and an almost entirely regular verb.

Your first words

Time to meet the language. In this course every Swahili word appears as real text with an English gloss on first use, and where pronunciation matters we mark the stressed syllable in capitals. Say each of these aloud now. Give every vowel its full, pure value, the way Spanish or Italian does, and never let a vowel slide into an English uh.

Swahili	Stress	English
jambo	JAM-bo	hello (simplified, common with visitors)
karibu	ka-RI-bu	welcome; you are welcome
asante	a-SAN-te	thank you
ndiyo	NDI-yo	yes
hapana	ha-PA-na	no
tafadhali	ta-fa-DHA-li	please
samahani	sa-ma-HA-ni	excuse me, sorry
rafiki	ra-FI-ki	friend
maji	MA-ji	water
kwaheri	kwa-HE-ri	goodbye

One caution about jambo, because it saves embarrassment later. Jambo on its own is a shortened greeting used mostly with foreigners; the full, ordinary version is hujambo, and it gets a specific answer, sijambo. Lesson 3 takes that apart properly. For now, notice that Swahili greetings come in matched pairs, question and answer, and that guessing the answer is not an option.

A last word on names. The language is Kiswahili when you are speaking Swahili and Swahili when you are speaking English; both are correct, and this course uses them interchangeably, leaning on Kiswahili when the point is the language's own self-description. The ki- on the front is a noun class prefix that marks languages, which is why you will also meet Kiingereza for English, Kifaransa for French, and Kiarabu for Arabic. You have just learned a piece of the noun class system without noticing.

Common misconceptions

• Swahili is a creole or a made-up trade jargon. It is a full Bantu language with a normal Bantu grammar and a documented literary tradition going back centuries. Heavy borrowing is not creolization; English borrowed just as heavily and nobody calls it a creole.
• Swahili is an Arabic dialect. The vocabulary is heavily Arabic-influenced, but the grammar, the noun classes, and the core words are Bantu. The two languages are unrelated.
• Swahili is spoken all over Africa. It is an eastern and central African language. In Lagos, Dakar, or Cairo you will not get far with it.
• Most Swahili speakers are native speakers. The reverse is true. The overwhelming majority learned it as a second language, which is exactly why it is welcoming to learners.
• Swahili is tonal, like Chinese or Yoruba. It is not. Standard Swahili lost the tone system most Bantu languages keep, and uses fixed stress instead.

Recap

• Kiswahili is a Bantu language of the Niger-Congo family, related to Zulu, Shona, Lingala, and Luganda.
• More than 200 million people use it, but only a small minority as a first language; it is above all a chosen second language.
• It is national or official in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and the DR Congo, an African Union working language, and honored by UNESCO on 7 July.
• It grew on the Indian Ocean trading coast, spread inland with nineteenth-century caravans, and was then adopted by colonial and post-independence governments.
• Its grammar is Bantu; roughly a sixth to a fifth of its vocabulary is Arabic, with later layers from Portuguese, German, and English.
• It has no tone, no articles, no gender, regular spelling, and predictable penultimate stress; its difficulty lives in the noun classes and their agreement.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Bantu languages. britannica.com
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili people. britannica.com
4. UNESCO. (n.d.). World Kiswahili Language Day. unesco.org
5. African Union. (n.d.). African Union. au.int

The big picture

Here is a promise no English teacher can make: after this lesson, you will be able to pronounce any Swahili word you can see, including words you have never met and do not understand. Swahili spelling is close to a perfect code. One letter stands for one sound, a handful of two-letter combinations stand for one sound each, nothing is ever silent, and the beat of the word falls in a predictable place. Compare that with English, where ough is pronounced six different ways, and you will understand why Swahili learners get to skip a year of misery.

One honest caveat before we start, because this is a text course: a page cannot pronounce anything for you. What a page can do is describe every sound precisely, anchor it to an English or Spanish sound you already make, and hand you rules that are genuinely regular. When you want to check your ear, any recording of Swahili news, a Kiswahili radio service, or a dictionary with audio will confirm exactly what is described here. The rules come first; the listening slots in behind them.

The plan: the five vowels, then the syllable rule that governs everything, then the consonants, then the three sounds English speakers most often flatten (ny, ng, and ng'), then the prenasalized consonants, then the syllabic m, and finally stress. We close by reading a page of real Swahili aloud.

Five vowels, and they never change

Swahili has exactly five vowel sounds, and each letter has one job:

Letter	Sound	English anchor	Example
a	ah	the a of father	baba, father
e	eh	the e of bet, held steady	kwenda, to go
i	ee	the ee of see	kiti, chair
o	oh	the o of more, held steady	moto, fire
u	oo	the oo of food	mtu, person

Two habits from English will fight you, and both must be broken now. The first is reduction: English weakens unstressed vowels into a lazy uh, which is why banana comes out buh-NAN-uh. Swahili never does this. Every vowel in every syllable, stressed or not, keeps its full value. The word for banana, ndizi, is NDI-zi with a clean ee and a clean ee, not ndih-zuh. The second habit is gliding: English long vowels drift, so that go is really go-oo and say is really seh-ee. Swahili vowels are pure and steady, like Spanish or Italian. Say moto with two flat, unmoving o sounds and you already sound better than most beginners.

Key idea: Swahili has five pure vowels that never reduce and never glide; keeping every vowel full and steady is the single biggest improvement most learners can make.

The syllable rule: everything ends in a vowel

Swahili syllables are open, which means they end in vowels. There are no closed syllables like English cat or strength, and no consonant clusters like str or nd at the end of a word. This one fact explains an enormous amount.

It explains, first, why every borrowed word gets remodeled. English school cannot survive as skool, so it becomes shule or skuli. Bicycle becomes baiskeli. Bus becomes basi. Doctor becomes daktari. Computer becomes kompyuta. Football becomes soka or mpira wa miguu. Swahili is not mangling these words; it is doing what any language does, fitting a foreign shape into its own mold.

It explains, second, how to break a long word apart. Take kiswahili: ki-swa-hi-li. Take mwalimu, teacher: mwa-li-mu. Take tafadhali, please: ta-fa-dha-li. Every syllable is a consonant plus a vowel, or a vowel alone.

And it explains what happens when two vowels sit side by side, which they often do. Each vowel is pronounced separately and forms its own syllable. There are no English-style diphthongs where two letters make one sliding sound. So:

• chai, tea, is cha-i, two syllables, not the English chai rhyming with pie. It is closer to CHA-ee.
• saa, hour, is sa-a, two syllables, a long steady ah.
• kuandika, to write, is ku-a-ndi-ka, four syllables.
• Kiingereza, the English language, is ki-i-nge-re-za, five syllables, with two separate i sounds at the front.
• maua, flowers, is ma-u-a, three syllables.

Key idea: Swahili syllables end in vowels, adjacent vowels are pronounced separately as separate syllables, and borrowed words are always reshaped to obey this.

The consonants, and the digraphs that count as single letters

Most Swahili consonants are unremarkable to an English speaker: b, d, f, g (always hard, as in go), h, j, k, l, m, n, p, s (always as in sun, never as in rose), t, v, w, y, z. The letter r is a light tap of the tongue, like the r in the American pronunciation of butter or the single r of Spanish pero. Swahili has no c, q, or x on its own; c appears only inside the digraph ch.

Then come the digraphs, two letters that spell one sound. Treat each as a single letter:

Digraph	Sound	Example	Meaning
ch	ch of church	chakula	food
sh	sh of shoe	shule	school
ny	the ny of canyon, Spanish enye	nyumba	house
ng'	the ng of singer	ng'ombe	cow
th	th of think (Arabic loans)	thelathini	thirty
dh	th of this (Arabic loans)	tafadhali	please
gh	a soft gargled g (Arabic loans)	ghali	expensive
kh	the ch of Bach (Arabic loans)	kheri	good fortune

The last four belong to the Arabic layer of the vocabulary, and their treatment varies. Coastal speakers, especially where Arabic is familiar, keep them distinct. Inland, many speakers simplify: th drifts toward s, dh toward z, gh toward g, kh toward h. Both are normal Swahili. Nobody will misunderstand you either way, so choose one and be consistent.

Key idea: Eight two-letter combinations spell single sounds, and the Arabic-origin four (th, dh, gh, kh) are pronounced with full Arabic color on the coast and simplified inland.

The trio to get right: ny, ng, and ng'

Three spellings look alike and sound different. Confusing them is the classic beginner error, so slow down here.

• ny is the sound in canyon, onion, and Spanish senor: a single n made with the middle of the tongue against the roof of the mouth. It is the first sound of nyumba, house; nyama, meat; nyanya, tomato. It is also, conveniently, the ny in Kenya.
• ng, with no apostrophe, is the ng of finger: a back-of-the-mouth n followed by an audible hard g. That is the sound in ngoma, drum; ngapi, how many; mingi, many.
• ng', with the apostrophe, is the ng of singer: the same back-of-the-mouth n with no g at all. That is the sound in ng'ombe, cow; ng'ambo, the other side; kung'aa, to shine.

The apostrophe in ng' is not punctuation. It is part of the letter, it is never dropped in careful writing, and it changes meaning. To feel the difference, say the English word singer and hold the n sound: that hum, made at the very back of the mouth, is ng'. Now say finger and notice the extra g pop: that is ng. English speakers find ng' hardest at the start of a word, since English never begins a word that way. The trick is to say the word singer, then chop off the first syllable and keep going: si-ng'ombe, ng'ombe.

Key idea: ny is the sound in canyon, ng is the sound in finger with an audible g, and ng' is the sound in singer with no g; the apostrophe is part of the letter, not punctuation.

Prenasalized consonants: mb, nd, ng, nj, nz, mv

Swahili words happily begin with a nasal glued to another consonant: mbwa, dog; ndizi, banana; njia, path; nzuri, good; mvua, rain. To an English speaker this looks impossible, because English allows these clusters only in the middle or at the end of words: number, candy, engine, gonzo, envy.

The sounds themselves are therefore already in your mouth. The only new thing is putting them first. Two techniques work. The first is the lean-back method: say the English word number slowly, then delete nu, leaving -mber, and reshape the ending to get mbwa. The second is the hum-first method: hum the nasal for a moment, then release straight into the consonant with no vowel between them. Mmm-bwa becomes mbwa. What you must not do is insert a vowel: it is not em-bwa or um-vua. Say them now: mbwa, mbu (mosquito), ndege (bird, and also airplane), ndani (inside), njia (path), njaa (hunger), nzuri (good), mvua (rain), mvinyo (wine).

Key idea: Prenasalized consonants are single units at the start of a syllable; hum the nasal and release straight into the consonant, never inserting a vowel between them.

The syllabic m, and why mtu has two syllables

Now a related but different case. When m stands in front of a consonant that is not b or v, it is not glued to that consonant. It stands alone as its own syllable, a held hum. This m is the noun class prefix you will meet in Module 3, and it is everywhere:

• mtu, person: m-tu, two syllables.
• mkate, bread: m-ka-te, three syllables.
• mji, town: m-ji, two syllables.
• mzee, elder: m-ze-e, three syllables.
• mtoto, child: m-to-to, three syllables.

Contrast mtu, which is m plus tu, with mbwa, which is one syllable. The difference is that b and v fuse with the nasal while t, k, j, z, and the rest do not. If you want a rule of thumb that will serve you all semester: hum the m, then say the rest of the word.

Key idea: Before most consonants the letter m is a syllable of its own, a held hum, so mtu is m-tu and mkate is m-ka-te; only before b and v does it fuse into a single prenasalized sound.

Stress: the next to last syllable, almost always

Swahili stress is not free the way Russian or English stress is. It falls on the penultimate syllable, the second from the end, in virtually every word. Once you can count syllables, you can place the beat.

Word	Syllables	Stress	Meaning
karibu	ka-ri-bu	ka-RI-bu	welcome
asante	a-sa-nte	a-SA-nte	thank you
habari	ha-ba-ri	ha-BA-ri	news
Kiswahili	ki-swa-hi-li	ki-swa-HI-li	the Swahili language
hakuna matata	ha-ku-na ma-ta-ta	ha-KU-na ma-TA-ta	there are no troubles
mtu	m-tu	M-tu	person

That last row is the payoff of the syllabic m. Because the hum counts as a syllable, mtu has two, and the penultimate rule puts the beat on the hum itself: a held mmm followed by a light tu. Beginners who skip the hum say something closer to mTU and sound instantly foreign.

The rule has a second, more useful consequence: stress moves when the word grows. Swahili adds prefixes and suffixes constantly, and the beat simply slides to stay second from the end.

• kitabu, book, is ki-TA-bu. Its plural vitabu is vi-TA-bu. Add the locative ending and kitabuni, in the book, is ki-ta-BU-ni.
• soma, read, is SO-ma. Ninasoma, I am reading, is ni-na-SO-ma. Sikusoma, I did not read, is si-ku-SO-ma.
• nyumba, house, is NYU-mba. Nyumbani, at home, is nyu-MBA-ni.

You never have to memorize stress with a word, the way Russian or Greek learners must. You only have to count. The exceptions are a scattering of Arabic borrowings and a few interjections, and at this level you can safely treat the rule as absolute.

Key idea: Stress falls on the second to last syllable of nearly every Swahili word, and it slides forward automatically whenever prefixes or endings are added.

Reading practice

Work down this list slowly. Split each word into syllables, mark the second from the end, then say it aloud. Do not read the English until you have said the Swahili.

rafiki, friend. mwalimu, teacher. mwanafunzi, student. kitabu, book. nyumba, house. ng'ombe, cow. ndege, bird or airplane. chakula, food. maji, water. jambo, matter or affair. shikamoo, a greeting to an elder. tafadhali, please. daktari, doctor. sokoni, at the market. Kiingereza, English. mvua, rain. njia, path. nzuri, good. mchezo, a game. kwaheri, goodbye.

Now three place names, which follow exactly the same rules: Tanzania is ta-nza-NI-a, four syllables with a separate i and a. Nairobi is na-i-RO-bi, again with a and i counted separately. Zanzibar keeps a final consonant only because it is an anglicized spelling; in Swahili the island is Unguja, u-NGU-ja, and the town is Mji Mkongwe, the old town.

Key idea: With five pure vowels, open syllables, eight digraphs, and penultimate stress, you can now read any written Swahili word aloud on first sight without knowing what it means.

Common misconceptions

• The apostrophe in ng' is punctuation and can be dropped. It is part of the letter and it distinguishes the singer sound from the finger sound; ng'ombe and ngoma begin with different consonants.
• Swahili vowels change depending on stress. They never do. Unlike English or Russian, unstressed Swahili vowels keep their full value.
• ai and au are diphthongs, as in English. They are two separate vowels in two separate syllables: chai is cha-i, maua is ma-u-a.
• mtu starts with a consonant cluster. The m is a syllable of its own, a hum, and it carries the stress in a two-syllable word like mtu.
• Swahili is tonal, so I need to learn pitch patterns. Standard Swahili has no lexical tone; it uses fixed penultimate stress instead, which is far simpler.

Recap

• Five pure vowels, a e i o u, never reduced and never glided.
• Syllables end in vowels, adjacent vowels split into separate syllables, and loanwords are reshaped to fit.
• Eight digraphs spell single sounds: ch, sh, ny, ng', th, dh, gh, kh.
• ny is canyon, ng is finger, ng' is singer; the apostrophe is part of the letter.
• Prenasalized mb, nd, ng, nj, nz, and mv are single units with no vowel inserted.
• Before most consonants, m is a syllable of its own; mtu is m-tu.
• Stress falls on the penultimate syllable and slides when prefixes or endings are added.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Bantu languages. britannica.com
3. UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center. (n.d.). African studies and African languages at UCLA. international.ucla.edu
4. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Swahili language. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org

The big picture

Walk into a shop in Dar es Salaam, point at what you want, and say the price in perfect Swahili, and you will still have been rude. In East Africa the greeting is not a lubricant applied before the real conversation; the greeting is a conversation, and skipping it says that you regard the other person as an obstacle rather than a human being. A full exchange between two acquaintances can run six or eight turns and take a minute, covering health, morning, work, home, and family before anyone mentions business. Visitors sometimes find this slow. Residents find the alternative shocking.

The good news for a beginner is that this ritual is highly structured. Swahili greetings come in fixed pairs: a specific question gets a specific answer, and you cannot improvise the answer any more than an English speaker can respond to how do you do with a weather report. That means you can learn a dozen exchanges by heart this week and immediately sound competent, long before your grammar can support a real conversation. Few things in language learning pay off this fast.

Today: the jambo family, which asks whether anything is the matter; the habari family, which asks for news; the informal greetings young people actually use in the street; and the phrases for parting. The respect greeting shikamoo and the doorway exchange hodi wait for the next lesson, because they carry cultural weight that deserves its own space.

The jambo family: is anything the matter?

Start with the word jambo, which means a matter, an affair, a thing that has happened. Its plural is mambo, matters. Once you know that, the classic greeting stops being a mysterious noise and becomes a sentence you can read.

Hujambo? is hu- plus jambo. The hu- on the front is the negative form of you, which Module 4 will teach you to build for yourself. So hujambo means, literally, you have no matter?, which is to say, nothing is wrong with you? And the answer, sijambo, is si- plus jambo, where si- is the negative form of I: I have no matter, nothing is wrong with me. The greeting is a small piece of grammar you will later be able to construct from scratch.

Question	Literally	Answer	Used for
Hujambo?	you have no matter?	Sijambo.	one person
Hamjambo?	you plural have no matter?	Hatujambo.	two or more people
Hajambo?	has he or she no matter?	Hajambo.	asking about a third person
Hawajambo?	have they no matter?	Hawajambo.	asking about several others

Three practical notes. First, the answer sijambo is not optional and not interchangeable: if someone says hujambo, you say sijambo, full stop. Answering nzuri to hujambo marks you instantly as a learner who has mixed up two different greeting families. Second, hajambo does double duty: it is both the question about someone else and the answer about them, so Hajambo baba yako? Hajambo means is your father well? He is well. Third, and importantly, jambo on its own is a simplified greeting used mostly with foreigners, especially in the Kenyan tourist industry. It is not wrong, and you will hear it constantly, but if you answer hujambo with a confident sijambo you have signaled that you are learning the language rather than being handled by it.

Key idea: The jambo greetings are built from jambo, a matter, plus a negative prefix, and each has one fixed answer: hujambo takes sijambo, hamjambo takes hatujambo, and hajambo and hawajambo serve as both question and answer.

The habari family: what is the news?

The second family is more flexible and, in daily life, more common. Habari means news, borrowed from Arabic khabar. Ask Habari? and you are asking what the news is. Ask Habari gani? and you are asking what kind of news. Neither expects an actual news bulletin.

The genius of this family is that you can aim it at anything by adding za, meaning of, and a topic. The word za is a small piece of the agreement system you will study in Module 5: habari behaves as a plural, so it takes za rather than ya.

Greeting	Literally	English equivalent
Habari za asubuhi?	news of the morning?	Good morning.
Habari za mchana?	news of the midday?	Good afternoon.
Habari za jioni?	news of the evening?	Good evening.
Habari za usiku?	news of the night?	Good evening, late.
Habari za leo?	news of today?	How is your day?
Habari za kazi?	news of the work?	How is work?
Habari za nyumbani?	news of at home?	How is everyone at home?
Habari za safari?	news of the journey?	How was your trip?
Habari za watoto?	news of the children?	How are the children?

Now the answers, and here is where a piece of culture hides in the grammar. The reply is almost always positive, whatever the truth. The standard options are nzuri, good; njema, fine or well; salama, peaceful or safe; and safi, clean, which in this context means great. You can intensify with nzuri sana, very good, or hedge with nzuri tu, just fine. Someone who is genuinely struggling might say si nzuri sana, not very good, but the default is upbeat, and answering a greeting with a catalogue of your troubles is not modest honesty; it is a small social misstep. Save the troubles for after the greeting.

The other habit to build is returning the question. Almost every answer ends with na wewe?, and you? So the shape of a real exchange is: question, positive answer, return question, positive answer, next topic. That is why a greeting can run six turns without anyone saying anything of substance. The substance is that you took the time.

Key idea: Habari asks for news and can be pointed at any topic with za, the answers are conventionally positive (nzuri, njema, salama, safi), and each answer is normally followed by na wewe? to return the question.

Times of day

The habari greetings need the day divided up, and Swahili divides it finely. Learn these five now; the more specific Arabic-derived terms will come back in the time lesson.

• alfajiri, the hour before and around dawn.
• asubuhi, morning, from sunrise until roughly noon.
• mchana, the middle of the day and the early afternoon.
• jioni, late afternoon and evening, roughly from four o'clock until dark.
• usiku, night.

Notice that these are nouns, not adverbs, and that Swahili turns a noun into a time or place expression with the ending -ni: usiku is night, and you have already met nyumbani, at home, from nyumba, house. Module 3 will name that ending properly.

How people actually greet in the street

Everything above is neutral and safe, usable with anyone. But if you spend a day among students in Nairobi or Dar es Salaam you will hear something faster and cooler, and it is worth recognizing even if you use it carefully at first.

Greeting	Sense	Typical answers
Mambo?	matters? what is up?	Poa. Safi. Freshi. Bomba.
Mambo vipi?	how are matters?	Poa sana. Safi kabisa.
Vipi?	how? what is up?	Poa. Salama.
Sasa?	now? (very informal, Kenya)	Fit. Poa.
Niaje?	how are you? (Sheng slang, Kenya)	Poa. Fiti.

Poa literally means cool, in the temperature sense, and it has traveled the same road as English cool. Safi means clean. Bomba means excellent. These are for friends and peers your own age. Using mambo with an elderly stranger would land roughly the way what is up, my dude would land with a bishop. The next lesson teaches you the greeting to use with that elderly stranger instead.

Key idea: Mambo, vipi, sasa, and niaje are informal peer greetings answered with poa, safi, freshi, or bomba, and they are for friends and age-mates, never for elders or officials.

Thanks, sympathy, and goodbye

Three more small pieces complete the everyday kit, and one of them has no English equivalent at all.

Asante is thank you; asante sana is thank you very much. The reply is karibu, you are welcome, or si neno, it is nothing. Notice that karibu does triple duty: welcome, come in, and you are welcome.

Samahani is excuse me or sorry when you are at fault or need to interrupt: samahani, njia ya kwenda sokoni? Excuse me, the way to go to the market?

Pole is the one with no English equivalent. It expresses sympathy for someone else's misfortune, and it carries no admission of fault. You say pole to someone who has stumbled, lost a relative, missed a bus, or is doing something tiring. Pole sana is the stronger form. The phrase pole na kazi, sympathy with the work, is said to anyone you find working, and is one of the warmest small courtesies in the language; there is a similar pole na safari for a traveler who has just arrived. If you say sorry in English to a Swahili speaker who has dropped something, they may wonder why you are apologizing for their clumsiness. Pole is what you meant.

For parting: kwaheri, goodbye, literally with good fortune, and kwaherini to a group. Tutaonana means we will see each other, and you can already see the future tense marker -ta- inside it. Baadaye means later. At night, usiku mwema, good night, or lala salama, sleep peacefully. To someone departing, safari njema, good journey.

Key idea: Asante thanks, samahani apologizes or interrupts, and pole expresses sympathy without accepting blame; kwaheri, tutaonana, and baadaye take your leave.

A full exchange

Here is how the pieces assemble. Read both parts aloud, then cover the English and read it again.

• Amina: Hujambo, Juma? Hello, Juma, are you well?
• Juma: Sijambo, Amina. Habari za asubuhi? I am well, Amina. News of the morning?
• Amina: Nzuri sana. Na wewe, habari za kazi? Very good. And you, how is work?
• Juma: Njema. Habari za nyumbani? Fine. How is everyone at home?
• Amina: Salama. Watoto hawajambo. Peaceful. The children are well.
• Juma: Asante. Tutaonana baadaye. Thank you. We will see each other later.
• Amina: Kwaheri! Goodbye!

Count the turns: seven, and not one of them carried information. That is the point. When you finally do ask Juma for directions, you will be asking a person you have greeted rather than a source of data.

Key idea: A real greeting cycles through several fixed pairs before any business begins, and the content matters less than the fact that you spent the time.

Common misconceptions

• Jambo is the normal Swahili hello. The full greeting is hujambo, answered sijambo; bare jambo is a simplified form used mostly with visitors.
• Nzuri answers everything. Nzuri answers the habari family. Hujambo takes sijambo, and mixing the two families is the most common beginner slip.
• Habari means hello. It means news; the greeting is literally a request for news, which is why it can be aimed at the morning, the work, the trip, or the children.
• Pole means sorry as an apology. Pole is sympathy for someone else's misfortune and admits no fault. Samahani is the apology.
• Greetings are optional politeness, as in a hurried English shop. In East Africa the greeting is close to obligatory, and skipping it to get to business reads as dismissive.

Recap

• Jambo means a matter; hujambo asks whether anything is wrong and is answered sijambo, with hamjambo and hatujambo for groups.
• Habari means news; add za plus a topic to ask about the morning, the work, the home, the trip, or the children.
• Answers are conventionally positive: nzuri, njema, salama, safi, and each is normally followed by na wewe?
• Times of day: alfajiri, asubuhi, mchana, jioni, usiku.
• Mambo, vipi, sasa, and niaje are peer slang answered with poa, safi, freshi, or bomba.
• Asante thanks, samahani apologizes, pole sympathizes, and kwaheri, tutaonana, and baadaye say goodbye.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili people. britannica.com
3. BBC. (n.d.). BBC Swahili: habari na taarifa. bbc.com
4. Yale Council on African Studies. (n.d.). African studies and African language study at Yale. africanstudies.yale.edu

The big picture

If you learn only one Swahili word beyond asante, make it shikamoo. Nothing else you can say will change a stranger's face so quickly. It is the greeting a younger person offers an older one, and it is used constantly: by children to every adult, by adults to anyone visibly their senior, by employees to employers, by students to teachers, by a forty-year-old to a sixty-year-old they have never met. Visitors who use it are visibly bracketed as people who have bothered to learn how the society works. Visitors who never use it are, at best, treated as children who do not know better.

Behind that word sits the organizing principle of a great deal of East African social life: seniority. Age confers respect, respect is expressed in language, and the language makes the relationship explicit every single time two people meet. English has almost nothing like it. The closest analogy is the sir and ma'am of some English-speaking regions, but even that is far weaker, and it is optional in a way shikamoo is not.

This lesson covers three things: the respect greeting and its reply, the titles you attach to people's names, and the doorway ritual of hodi and karibu that governs entering someone's space. We close with the coastal Arabic greetings and a note on hands.

Shikamoo and marahaba

The exchange is fixed and short:

• Younger person: Shikamoo.
• Older person: Marahaba.

That is the whole ritual, and neither half can be substituted. If you are the younger, you say shikamoo and wait for marahaba. If someone says shikamoo to you, and eventually someone will, the only correct reply is marahaba. Saying shikamoo back would be like bowing to someone who has just bowed lower than you.

The etymology is worth knowing because it explains the tone. Shikamoo is generally traced to the phrase nashika miguu yako, I take hold of your feet, a gesture of deep deference from an older world in which a junior might literally touch a senior's feet. Marahaba comes from Arabic and means something close to delighted, or you are welcome to it. So the pair encodes a bow and a gracious acceptance.

Because of that origin, shikamoo carries some historical weight. Its posture of self-lowering has been linked by some writers to the hierarchies of the coastal slave-owning era, and you will occasionally meet younger urban Tanzanians and Kenyans who find it uncomfortable and prefer a warm Habari yako? with a respectful title instead. That debate is real, but it is a minority position: in practice shikamoo remains the ordinary, expected, unremarkable way to greet an elder across East Africa, and a foreigner who uses it is being polite, not archaic.

Two mechanical details. To greet several elders at once, add the plural ending: shikamooni. And the reply marahaba never changes shape, no matter how many people said shikamoo.

Key idea: Shikamoo is said by the younger person and answered marahaba by the older one, always in that direction, with shikamooni for a group of elders.

Titles: how to address people

Swahili speakers rarely use a bare personal name to someone senior. A title goes in front, and choosing the right one is half of sounding respectful.

Title	Meaning	Used for
Mzee	elder, old man	An older man; a term of high respect, not an insult
Bibi	grandmother, lady	An older woman; also means grandmother
Bwana	Mr., sir	A man, roughly like Mr.; also boss
Mama	mother	Any adult woman, respectfully; extremely common
Baba	father	Any adult man, respectfully
Dada	sister	A woman roughly your own age
Kaka	brother	A man roughly your own age
Ndugu	sibling, comrade	A neutral, egalitarian address, common in Tanzania
Mwalimu	teacher	Teachers, and a term of great honor
Daktari	doctor	Physicians

Two of these repay a closer look. Mzee means old, and in English calling a stranger old man would be rude; in Swahili it is a compliment, because age is an achievement. Mwalimu is the honorific Tanzanians gave Julius Nyerere, the country's first president, who had actually been a schoolteacher and who is still called Mwalimu Nyerere decades after his death. In a culture that respects teaching, that is the highest available title, and the fact that a head of state kept it rather than a military rank tells you something.

There is one more pattern that surprises visitors: adults are frequently addressed as the parent of their eldest child. A woman named Amina whose first child is Juma may be called Mama Juma by neighbors, and her husband Baba Juma. This is not a demotion; it is a courtesy, and among people who know each other it can entirely replace the personal name.

Key idea: Titles precede names and are close to obligatory with seniors: mzee and bibi for elders, bwana, mama, and baba for adults, dada and kaka for peers, and mwalimu as a term of honor.

The doorway: hodi and karibu

Swahili has a word whose entire job is to be said at a threshold. You do not knock and wait silently; you call out:

• Visitor, at the door or gate: Hodi! Often doubled, Hodi hodi!
• Host, from inside: Karibu! Or karibu ndani, welcome inside. To a group, karibuni.

Hodi is not translatable as a word; it functions as may I come in, and it is used for houses, offices, shops, and any space that belongs to someone else. Entering without it is roughly like walking into a colleague's office and sitting down without a word.

Karibu then keeps working. It is the all-purpose word of hospitality, and it attaches to whatever is being offered:

Swahili	English
Karibu ndani.	Come in.
Karibu chai.	Have some tea.
Karibu chakula.	Come and eat.
Karibu tena.	Come again. / Welcome back.
Karibu sana.	You are very welcome.
Karibuni nyumbani.	Welcome home, to all of you.

Guests are meant to be fed, and refusing outright can sting. If you genuinely cannot eat, the graceful exits are asante, nimeshiba, thank you, I am full, or asante, nimekwisha kula, thank you, I have already eaten. Notice the -me- in nimeshiba: that is the perfect tense marker, and Module 4 will teach you to build it.

Two proverbs carry this ethic, and both are still quoted. Mgeni njoo, mwenyeji apone, let the guest come so that the host may prosper, says that hospitality benefits the giver. Its wry companion, Mgeni siku mbili, siku ya tatu mpe jembe, a guest for two days, on the third give him a hoe, says that hospitality has limits. Mgeni is a guest or stranger, mwenyeji a host or local resident, and jembe a hoe.

Key idea: Hodi is called at any threshold and answered karibu; karibu then attaches to whatever is offered, and food offered to a guest should be refused only gently, with nimeshiba.

The coastal layer, and what your hands are doing

On the historically Muslim coast, from Lamu down through Mombasa, Zanzibar, and the Tanzanian shore, an Arabic greeting layer runs alongside the Bantu one. Assalamu alaykum, peace be upon you, is answered Alaykum salaam, and upon you peace. Two more coastal greetings borrow directly from Arabic: Sabalkheri, good morning, from sabah al-khayr, and Masalkheri, good evening. The usual reply repeats the greeting or answers Aheri. You do not need these to be understood inland, but on the coast they are warm, ordinary speech, and recognizing them will save you a puzzled pause.

Finally, greeting is physical. Handshakes are common, frequent, and unhurried, and two people may continue holding hands well into the conversation, which is a sign of warmth rather than an invitation. The right hand is used for greeting, giving, receiving, and eating. A classic gesture of respect is to support your right forearm with your left hand as you shake, which quietly says that you offer the greeting with both hands. Among people who know each other well, a light three-part handshake or a shoulder bump may replace the formal version. And in some Muslim contexts a man and a woman who are not related may not shake hands at all; the graceful response is to follow the other person's lead, and a hand placed over the heart is always a safe substitute.

Key idea: The coast adds an Arabic greeting layer (assalamu alaykum, sabalkheri), and Swahili greeting is physical: long right-handed handshakes, often with the left hand supporting the right forearm as a mark of respect.

Putting it together

Here is a visit, from the gate to the tea, with a gloss.

• Mgeni: Hodi hodi! Hello, may I come in?
• Mwenyeji: Karibu! Karibu ndani. Welcome! Come inside.
• Mgeni: Shikamoo, mzee. Respectful greeting, elder.
• Mwenyeji: Marahaba. Habari za safari? Marahaba. How was the journey?
• Mgeni: Njema kabisa, asante. Very fine indeed, thank you.
• Mwenyeji: Karibu chai. Have some tea.
• Mgeni: Asante sana. Thank you very much.

Seven lines, and the visitor has established that they know where they stand, who is senior, and how to accept hospitality. That is a great deal of social work for seven short phrases, and it is available to you after one lesson.

Common misconceptions

• Shikamoo can be exchanged in both directions like hello. It only travels upward, from younger to older, and the reply is always marahaba.
• Marahaba is a general polite word. It is specifically the elder's answer to shikamoo. Saying it to someone senior to you inverts the relationship.
• Mzee is rude because it means old man. It is a title of respect. Age is a credential, not an embarrassment.
• Hodi is optional if the door is open. An open door is not an invitation; you still call hodi and wait for karibu.
• Refusing food politely is the same as in English. A flat no can wound. Use asante, nimeshiba, thank you, I am full.

Recap

• Shikamoo goes from younger to older and is answered marahaba; shikamooni greets several elders.
• Its literal sense, I hold your feet, explains its deference and the modern debate about it, but it remains standard everyday courtesy.
• Titles come before names: mzee, bibi, bwana, mama, baba, dada, kaka, ndugu, mwalimu, daktari; parents are often called Mama or Baba plus their eldest child's name.
• Hodi is called at a threshold and answered karibu, which then attaches to anything offered: karibu chai, karibu chakula, karibu tena.
• Mgeni is guest, mwenyeji host, and proverbs frame hospitality as a benefit to the host with a two-day limit.
• The coast adds assalamu alaykum, sabalkheri, and masalkheri; handshakes are long, right-handed, and often supported by the left hand.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili people. britannica.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Julius Nyerere. britannica.com
3. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. (n.d.). Stone Town of Zanzibar. whc.unesco.org
4. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com

The big picture

You have greeted someone. Now they want to know who you are, and this is the moment Swahili becomes genuinely easy for a beginner, because the sentence I am a student contains no verb at all. It contains a two-letter word, ni, that never changes: not for person, not for number, not for gender, not for the fifteen noun classes waiting in the next module. Mimi ni mwanafunzi. Wewe ni mwanafunzi. Sisi ni wanafunzi. One word, every time.

English speakers, who conjugate am, are, is, was, were before breakfast, tend to distrust this. Do not. Swahili's little ni is one of the great free gifts in the language, and today you will build an entire self-introduction on top of it: your name, where you come from, what you do, where you live, and what you study.

Along the way we meet the six pronouns, take a first look at the six subject prefixes that will drive every verb in Module 4, and pick up one of the most elegant patterns in Swahili: the way the country, the people, and the language of a place are built from the same root with three different prefixes.

The six pronouns

Swahili has one set of independent pronouns, used for emphasis and after certain words, and one set of prefixes that attach to verbs. Here they are side by side; you will use the prefixes far more often.

Pronoun	Meaning	Subject prefix	Example verb
mimi	I, me	ni-	ninasoma, I am reading
wewe	you (one person)	u-	unasoma, you are reading
yeye	he, she, him, her	a-	anasoma, he or she is reading
sisi	we, us	tu-	tunasoma, we are reading
ninyi	you (more than one)	m-	mnasoma, you all are reading
wao	they, them	wa-	wanasoma, they are reading

Four observations. First, yeye has no gender. It means he or she, and Swahili simply does not encode the difference, any more than English distinguishes a male chair from a female one. Learners find this liberating and translators find it maddening. Second, ninyi is also written and pronounced nyinyi, especially in Kenya; both are correct. Third, Swahili distinguishes singular you from plural you, a distinction English lost and keeps trying to reinvent with you all. Fourth, and crucially, the pronoun is usually optional: because ninasoma already contains ni-, saying mimi ninasoma is like saying me, I am reading. You use the independent pronoun for emphasis or contrast, not by default.

Key idea: Six pronouns, mimi, wewe, yeye, sisi, ninyi, wao, correspond to six subject prefixes, ni-, u-, a-, tu-, m-, wa-; the prefix is obligatory and the pronoun is optional.

ni and si: sentences with no verb

To say X is Y, put ni between them. To say X is not Y, put si between them. Both words are completely invariable.

Swahili	English
Mimi ni mwanafunzi.	I am a student.
Wewe ni mwalimu.	You are a teacher.
Yeye ni daktari.	He or she is a doctor.
Sisi ni wanafunzi.	We are students.
Ninyi ni walimu.	You all are teachers.
Wao ni madaktari.	They are doctors.
Mimi si mwalimu.	I am not a teacher.
Hiki ni kitabu.	This is a book.
Hii si nyumba yangu.	This is not my house.

Notice that there is no word for a or the anywhere. Mwanafunzi covers a student, the student, and student. Notice too that the plural of the noun changed, mwanafunzi to wanafunzi and mwalimu to walimu, while ni sat there unmoved. That plural change is the noun class system knocking at the door, and Module 3 opens it.

In fast, casual speech ni is often simply dropped: Mimi mwanafunzi, said with the right rhythm, is perfectly ordinary. Do not imitate that yet. Say the ni until it is automatic.

One caution about si. You will meet a different si in Module 4, the negative prefix meaning I do not, as in sisomi, I do not read. The copula si is a separate word standing between two things; the verbal si- is glued to the front of a verb. Context makes them easy to tell apart, but it is worth knowing they are two different animals.

Key idea: ni means is, am, or are and si means is not, am not, or are not; both are invariable single words placed between the subject and what it is, and Swahili has no articles.

Saying your name

Two constructions do this job, and you should learn both.

• Jina langu ni Maria. My name is Maria. Literally, name my is Maria. Notice that the possessive follows the noun, as it does throughout Swahili.
• Ninaitwa Maria. I am called Maria. This is a verb: ni- plus -na- plus -itwa, the passive of kuita, to call. In everyday speech it contracts to naitwa.

The matching questions are Jina lako ni nani?, what is your name, and Unaitwa nani?, what are you called. Both are extremely common, and the shortened Jina lako? works too. The word nani means who; Swahili asks who are you called rather than what.

A word about Swahili names themselves, because they are a small history lesson. Many are Arabic in origin: Amina, Fatuma, Zainabu, Ali, Hassan, Rashidi. Several come from days of the week, so a child born on Friday, ijumaa, may be named Juma, and one born on Thursday, alhamisi, Hamisi. And a large modern set are ordinary Swahili words used as names, which makes them transparent in a way English names no longer are: Baraka, blessing; Neema, grace; Furaha, joy; Upendo, love; Tumaini, hope; Imani, faith; Amani, peace; Zawadi, gift; Subira, patience; Rehema, mercy. On the coast you will also see the Arabic pattern bin, son of, and binti, daughter of, as in Ali bin Hassan or Fatuma binti Juma.

Key idea: Say your name with Jina langu ni or with the verb ninaitwa, contracted to naitwa, and ask with Jina lako ni nani? or Unaitwa nani?

Countries, peoples, and languages: one root, three prefixes

Here is the pattern that makes Swahili feel systematic. Take the root for England, ingereza. Now add prefixes:

Prefix	Meaning	Example	English
u-	the country or the abstract place	Uingereza	England
m-	one person from there	Mwingereza	an English person
wa-	several people from there	Waingereza	English people
ki-	the language	Kiingereza	the English language

The same four prefixes run right across the map: Ufaransa, Mfaransa, Wafaransa, Kifaransa for France; Ujerumani, Mjerumani, Wajerumani, Kijerumani for Germany; Uchina, Mchina, Wachina, Kichina; Urusi, Mrusi, Warusi, Kirusi; Uhispania, Mhispania, Kihispania. And of course Uswahili, Mswahili, Waswahili, Kiswahili. Countries whose names came into Swahili late usually keep their own form without the u-, so the United States is Marekani, a citizen is a Mmarekani, and the plural is Wamarekani; likewise Kenya, Mkenya, Wakenya; Tanzania, Mtanzania, Watanzania.

You have just met three noun classes in advance: u- for countries and abstractions, m- and wa- for people, ki- for languages and things. Hold that thought until Module 3.

Key idea: The prefixes u-, m-, wa-, and ki- turn one root into the country, one person, several people, and the language, as in Uingereza, Mwingereza, Waingereza, Kiingereza.

Where you are from, what you do, where you live

Four verbs carry most of a self-introduction. Each is shown with ni- for I and u- for you; the -na- in the middle is the present tense marker of Module 4.

Question	Answer	English
Unatoka wapi?	Ninatoka Marekani.	Where do you come from? I come from the United States.
Unaishi wapi?	Ninaishi Nairobi.	Where do you live? I live in Nairobi.
Unafanya kazi gani?	Mimi ni mwalimu.	What work do you do? I am a teacher.
Unasoma nini?	Ninasoma Kiswahili.	What are you studying? I am studying Swahili.

Some occupations to fill that slot: mwanafunzi, student; mwalimu, teacher; daktari, doctor; muuguzi, nurse; mhandisi, engineer; mwandishi, writer or journalist; mkulima, farmer; mfanyabiashara, businessperson; dereva, driver; mpishi, cook; fundi, skilled tradesperson; askari, soldier or guard. Notice how many begin with m-, the people prefix, and how mfanyabiashara is transparently built from fanya, do, and biashara, business: the person who does business.

Two more useful lines. To say how old you are, Swahili says you have years: Nina miaka ishirini, I have twenty years. And to close a first meeting warmly, Nimefurahi kukutana nawe, I am pleased to have met you, or the simpler Nafurahi kukuona, I am glad to see you.

Key idea: Ninatoka, ninaishi, ninafanya kazi, and ninasoma cover origin, residence, work, and study, and age is expressed with nina, I have, plus miaka, years.

A first meeting, complete

• Neema: Hujambo! Hello, are you well?
• David: Sijambo. Habari za asubuhi? I am well. How is the morning?
• Neema: Nzuri, asante. Jina langu ni Neema. Wewe unaitwa nani? Good, thank you. My name is Neema. What are you called?
• David: Ninaitwa David. Nafurahi kukuona. I am called David. I am glad to see you.
• Neema: Karibu Tanzania! Unatoka wapi? Welcome to Tanzania! Where do you come from?
• David: Ninatoka Marekani. Mimi ni Mmarekani. I come from the United States. I am an American.
• Neema: Unafanya kazi gani? What work do you do?
• David: Mimi ni mwalimu, lakini sasa ninasoma Kiswahili. I am a teacher, but now I am studying Swahili.
• Neema: Vizuri sana! Kwaheri, tutaonana. Very good! Goodbye, we will see each other.

Read that dialogue once more and count what you can now do: greet, exchange names, state nationality, state occupation, state what you study, and part. That is a functioning first conversation, built from one invariable word and six prefixes.

Common misconceptions

• ni changes for person or number. It never changes. Mimi ni, sisi ni, wao ni, kitabu ni: one form always.
• yeye means he, and there is a separate word for she. There is not. Yeye covers both, and Swahili has no grammatical gender at all.
• You must use the pronoun in every sentence. The subject prefix on the verb already carries it; mimi ninasoma is emphatic, ninasoma is normal.
• The si in Mimi si mwalimu is the same si as in sisomi. They are different: the copula si is a separate word, while si- in sisomi is a negative prefix glued to a verb.
• Kiswahili, Mswahili, and Uswahili are spelling variants of one word. They are three different words built from one root: the language, a person, and the coast and culture.

Recap

• Pronouns: mimi, wewe, yeye, sisi, ninyi (nyinyi), wao; subject prefixes: ni-, u-, a-, tu-, m-, wa-.
• ni means is, am, are; si means the negative; both are invariable, and there are no articles.
• Jina langu ni... and ninaitwa (naitwa)... both give your name; ask with Jina lako ni nani? or Unaitwa nani?
• u-, m-, wa-, and ki- build the country, one person, several people, and the language from one root.
• Ninatoka, ninaishi, ninafanya kazi, ninasoma answer where from, where living, what work, what study; age uses nina miaka.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Tanzania. britannica.com
3. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Swahili grammar. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org
4. UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center. (n.d.). African studies and African languages at UCLA. international.ucla.edu

The big picture

Everything you have learned so far has been vocabulary and ritual. This lesson is where Swahili grammar actually begins, and it begins with one idea that runs through the whole language: every noun belongs to a class, and its class rules the sentence around it.

Here is the idea in one pair of sentences. Mtoto mdogo anacheza means the small child is playing. Watoto wadogo wanacheza means the small children are playing. Look at what changed. Not just the noun: the adjective changed from mdogo to wadogo, and the verb changed from anacheza to wanacheza. The noun's class stamped itself on both. A Swahili sentence rhymes with itself, and once you can hear that rhyme, sentences that looked like alphabet soup snap into shape.

Learners often ask whether this is just gender with more categories, like French masculine and feminine or German's three. The comparison helps for about thirty seconds and then misleads. Three differences matter. First, Swahili has roughly fifteen classes in use, not two or three. Second, the class is marked on the front of the noun itself, so you can usually see it, whereas French gives no clue whether a table is masculine. Third, the classes are partly meaningful: one is for people, one is for languages, one is for trees and things that extend, one for abstractions. French gender is arbitrary; Swahili classes are semi-organized, and the organization is a real memory aid.

Today we take the first two class pairs, which between them cover most people and a great many everyday things. Lesson 7 takes the rest, and Lesson 8 assembles the full agreement machinery.

What a class actually is

A noun class is a set of three things bundled together:

1. A singular prefix and a matching plural prefix. The pair is what lets Swahili build plurals on the front of the word rather than the back: mtoto to watoto, not child to children.
2. A loose semantic core, a family resemblance among the nouns in the class.
3. A set of agreement markers that everything referring to that noun must wear: the verb's subject prefix, the adjective's prefix, the possessive, the demonstrative, the number, and more.

Bantu specialists number the classes 1 to 18, and this course will give those numbers because you will meet them in any reference book. But the practical way to hold them is by their prefix pair, which is how they are named in the classroom: the M-/WA- class, the M-/MI- class, the KI-/VI- class, and so on. Singular and plural are counted as separate classes, which is why the numbers come in pairs: classes 1 and 2 are the singular and plural of the same group.

Key idea: A noun class is a singular prefix, a plural prefix, a loose meaning, and a set of agreement markers; Swahili has about fifteen in use, and the class is visible on the front of the noun.

Class 1 and 2: the M-/WA- class, for people

This is the cleanest class in the language, and the only one with a semantic rule you can trust: if a noun refers to a human being, it takes class 1 and 2 agreement. Singular m-, plural wa-.

Singular	Plural	Meaning
mtu	watu	person, people
mtoto	watoto	child, children
mgeni	wageni	guest, guests
mzee	wazee	elder, elders
mke	wake	wife, wives
mume	waume	husband, husbands
mpishi	wapishi	cook, cooks
mkulima	wakulima	farmer, farmers
Mtanzania	Watanzania	Tanzanian, Tanzanians

Now the spelling wrinkle. When the stem begins with a vowel, m- becomes mw- and wa- usually smooths to w-:

Singular	Plural	Meaning
mwalimu	walimu	teacher, teachers
mwanafunzi	wanafunzi	student, students
mwana	wana	child of, offspring
mwenyeji	wenyeji	host, local resident
mwanamke	wanawake	woman, women
mwanamume	wanaume	man, men

Look closely at mwanamke and its plural wanawake: the plural is marked twice, once on mwana and once on mke, because the word is a compound of child of plus wife. Swahili does this happily, and it is worth noticing rather than memorizing.

The agreement markers for these two classes are the ones you already met in Lesson 5:

Class	Verb prefix	Adjective prefix	Example
1 (singular)	a-	m- / mw-	Mtoto mdogo anacheza. The small child is playing.
2 (plural)	wa-	wa-	Watoto wadogo wanacheza. The small children are playing.

Note the small asymmetry that trips people: the verb prefix for class 1 is a-, not m-. The m- you see on the noun is the noun's own prefix; the verb wears a- instead. Class 2 is easier, because wa- does both jobs.

Key idea: Every human noun takes class 1 and 2: m-/mw- in the singular, wa- in the plural, with verb prefixes a- and wa- and adjective prefixes m-/mw- and wa-.

Class 1a: the humans without the prefix

Now an honest complication, because you will meet it in your first week of real Swahili. A group of very common nouns refer to people but carry no m- at all. Most are kinship terms or borrowings:

baba, father. mama, mother. dada, sister. kaka, brother. bibi, grandmother. babu, grandfather. rafiki, friend. daktari, doctor. askari, soldier or guard. dereva, driver. jirani, neighbor.

Grammarians call these class 1a. The rule is simple and generous: they take class 1 and 2 agreement anyway, because they are people. Baba anakuja means father is coming, with the class 1 verb prefix a-, exactly as if the word began with m-.

Their plurals are the messy part, and there is no way around learning them. Some are unchanged (baba can mean father or fathers), some take wa- (wababa, wadada), and several borrowings take a ma- plural from a different class: rafiki gives marafiki, daktari gives madaktari, askari gives maaskari. Learn these as vocabulary, not as rules. The important thing is that no matter how the plural is formed, the agreement stays human: Marafiki wangu wanakuja, my friends are coming, with wa- on the verb.

Key idea: Class 1a nouns such as baba, mama, rafiki, and daktari have no m- prefix but take full human agreement; their plurals are irregular and must be memorized.

Class 3 and 4: the M-/MI- class

Here is where beginners get ambushed. This class also uses m- in the singular, so its nouns look exactly like class 1 nouns. But its plural is mi-, not wa-, and its agreement is completely different.

Singular	Plural	Meaning
mti	miti	tree, trees
mkono	mikono	arm or hand
mguu	miguu	leg or foot
mji	miji	town, towns
mlima	milima	mountain, mountains
mto	mito	river, rivers
mkate	mikate	loaf of bread
mwaka	miaka	year, years
mwezi	miezi	month or moon
mchezo	michezo	game, games
mfuko	mifuko	bag, bags
moto	mioto	fire, fires

The semantic core is worth stating even though it leaks: things that grow, extend, or run. Trees and plants. Limbs, which extend from the body. Rivers and mountains, which extend across the land. Fire, which spreads. Years and months, which run on. Towns, which grow. It is not a law, but it catches a great deal, and it explains why mkate, bread, is here: it is what grew from grain. As with any semantic rule in Bantu, treat it as a hint and let the prefix be the authority.

The agreement is the part you must not guess:

Class	Verb prefix	Adjective prefix	Example
3 (singular)	u-	m- / mw-	Mti mrefu umeanguka. The tall tree has fallen.
4 (plural)	i-	mi-	Miti mirefu imeanguka. The tall trees have fallen.

So the two m- classes split at exactly the point that matters. Compare, and say both aloud:

• Mtu mrefu ameanguka. The tall person has fallen. Class 1, verb prefix a-.
• Mti mrefu umeanguka. The tall tree has fallen. Class 3, verb prefix u-.
• Watu warefu wameanguka. The tall people have fallen. Class 2.
• Miti mirefu imeanguka. The tall trees have fallen. Class 4.

Four sentences, one adjective root, one verb root, four different agreement patterns. This is the sound of Swahili working.

Key idea: Class 3 and 4 use m-/mw- and mi- on the noun, but their verb prefixes are u- and i-, which is what separates them from the human m-/wa- class.

How to tell the two m- classes apart

The practical test is meaning, and it is nearly foolproof. Is the noun a human being? If yes, it is class 1 and 2, whatever it looks like, and its plural is wa-. If no, and it begins with m-, it is very probably class 3 and 4, and its plural is mi-.

Two special cases complete the picture. First, a few m- nouns that are not human still take mi- and behave normally: mnyama, animal, gives wanyama, animals, because animals take human agreement, while mmea, plant, gives mimea. Second, when you meet a new m- word in a dictionary, the entry gives the plural, and the plural settles the class instantly. Do not guess when a dictionary is at hand; do guess by meaning when it is not.

Key idea: Humans are class 1 and 2 with wa- plurals; non-human m- nouns are class 3 and 4 with mi- plurals, and the plural form in a dictionary entry settles the question at once.

Putting it to work

Read each sentence, then check the gloss. Track which prefix on the verb corresponds to which noun.

• Mwalimu anafundisha. The teacher is teaching.
• Walimu wanafundisha. The teachers are teaching.
• Mji mkubwa unakua. The big town is growing.
• Miji mikubwa inakua. The big towns are growing.
• Rafiki yangu ni mkulima. My friend is a farmer.
• Marafiki wangu ni wakulima. My friends are farmers.
• Mkono wangu unauma. My arm hurts.
• Mikono yangu inauma. My arms hurt.

Two things to notice in that last pair. The possessive changed from wangu to yangu when the noun went from class 3 to class 4, which is the agreement chain reaching further than the verb. And Swahili says my arm hurts with a verb, kuuma, to hurt or bite, agreeing with the arm rather than with me. Lesson 8 collects all of these agreement forms in one place.

Key idea: The class prefix reaches beyond the verb to possessives, adjectives, and everything else that refers to the noun, which is why identifying the class first is the habit that makes Swahili sentences build themselves.

Common misconceptions

• Noun classes are just gender with extra categories. They are visible on the noun, semi-meaningful, and about fifteen strong, and they drive agreement far more widely than European gender does.
• Any noun starting with m- is in the same class. Two different classes use m-: the human class with wa- plurals and the class 3 group with mi- plurals.
• The verb prefix always matches the noun prefix. It often does not. Class 1 nouns start with m- but take a- on the verb; class 3 nouns start with m- but take u-.
• Baba and rafiki are not in a class because they have no prefix. They are class 1a and take full human agreement: Baba anakuja, Marafiki wanakuja.
• Plurals are formed at the end of the word, as in English. Bantu plurals are formed by changing the prefix at the front: mtoto to watoto, mti to miti.

Recap

• A noun class bundles a singular prefix, a plural prefix, a loose meaning, and a set of agreement markers.
• Classes 1 and 2, m-/mw- and wa-, cover every human noun; verb prefixes a- and wa-.
• Class 1a nouns such as baba, mama, rafiki, and daktari take human agreement without the m- prefix; their plurals are irregular, often with ma-.
• Classes 3 and 4, m-/mw- and mi-, cover trees, limbs, rivers, mountains, towns, fire, months, and years; verb prefixes u- and i-.
• Test a new m- word by meaning: human means class 1 and 2, non-human usually means class 3 and 4, and the dictionary plural settles it.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Bantu languages. britannica.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
3. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Swahili grammar. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org
4. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Noun class. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org

The big picture

Two classes down, and they covered people, trees, limbs, and towns. Today we take the classes that cover almost everything else: the class of made things and languages, the class where singular and plural look identical, the class of big round objects and body parts that come in pairs, the class of abstractions like freedom and friendship, the class that turns verbs into nouns, and the three classes that handle places.

That sounds like a great deal, and it is, so here is the strategy. You are not memorizing eighteen tables today. You are learning six prefix patterns and their two agreement markers each, and you are building the habit of asking one question when you meet a new noun: what is its plural? The plural gives you the class, the class gives you the agreement, and the agreement gives you the sentence. Lesson 8 will then put every agreement marker in one place.

Class 7 and 8: KI-/VI-, the class of things

If the m-/wa- class is for people, this is the class for what people make and use. Singular ki-, plural vi-.

Singular	Plural	Meaning
kitu	vitu	thing, things
kitabu	vitabu	book, books
kiti	viti	chair, chairs
kisu	visu	knife, knives
kikombe	vikombe	cup, cups
kijiko	vijiko	spoon, spoons
kitanda	vitanda	bed, beds
kiatu	viatu	shoe, shoes
kichwa	vichwa	head, heads
kijiji	vijiji	village, villages

Before a vowel the prefixes soften: ki- becomes ch- and vi- becomes vy-. This is why some of the commonest words in the language do not look like they belong here at all:

chakula, food, plural vyakula. chumba, room, plural vyumba. choo, toilet, plural vyoo. chuo, college, plural vyuo, which is why a university is chuo kikuu, the great college. chombo, vessel or utensil, plural vyombo.

This class does three extra jobs worth knowing. It names languages: Kiswahili, Kiingereza, Kifaransa, Kiarabu. It forms diminutives, taking a noun from another class and shrinking it: mlima, mountain, becomes kilima, hill; mji, town, becomes kijiji, village; mtu, person, becomes kijitu, a little person. And it forms manner expressions: kienyeji means in the local way, kizungu in the European way.

Agreement is beautifully transparent here, because the verb and adjective prefixes are the same as the noun prefixes: ki- and vi-. Kitabu kizuri kimeanguka, the good book has fallen. Vitabu vizuri vimeanguka, the good books have fallen.

One trap: kijana, a youth, and its plural vijana look like class 7 and 8, but young people are people, so they take human agreement. Kijana anasoma, the young person is reading, not kinasoma. Meaning beats form whenever a human is involved.

Key idea: KI-/VI- covers things, languages, diminutives, and manner; its prefixes become ch-/vy- before vowels; and its verb and adjective agreement is simply ki- and vi-.

Class 9 and 10: the N- class, where singular equals plural

This is the largest class in Swahili and the strangest for a beginner, because the singular and the plural look exactly the same. Nyumba means house and houses. Ndizi means banana and bananas. Barua means letter and letters. The number lives on the verb instead.

Noun	Meaning	Noun	Meaning
nyumba	house(s)	meza	table(s)
njia	road(s), path(s)	shule	school(s)
nchi	country, countries	kalamu	pen(s)
ngoma	drum(s), dance(s)	saa	hour(s), watch(es)
ndizi	banana(s)	habari	news
nguo	cloth(es)	safari	journey(s)
barua	letter(s)	pesa	money
dawa	medicine(s)	picha	picture(s)

Where did the n- go? It is still there in some words and hidden in others. The class prefix N- survives visibly before b, d, g, j, v, and z, which is why nyumba, ndizi, ngoma, njia, and nguo all begin with a prenasalized consonant. Before voiceless consonants such as p, t, k, ch, f, s, and sh it simply drops, which is why shule, kalamu, and picha look bare. This is also where the whole class of recent loanwords lands: if Swahili borrows an English or Arabic noun and does not know what to do with it, it becomes N- class.

Because you cannot see number on the noun, you must read it off the verb. Class 9 takes i- and class 10 takes zi-:

• Nyumba inauzwa. The house is being sold.
• Nyumba zinauzwa. The houses are being sold.
• Barua imefika. The letter has arrived.
• Barua zimefika. The letters have arrived.

Adjectives in this class carry the same N- that the nouns do, and it changes shape by the same rules: -zuri becomes nzuri, -baya becomes mbaya, -dogo becomes ndogo, -refu becomes ndefu, -eupe becomes nyeupe, -ingi becomes nyingi, while adjectives beginning with voiceless consonants take nothing at all: kubwa, safi, fupi, tamu. So nyumba nzuri is a nice house and nyumba kubwa is a big house, and both look the same in the plural.

Key idea: N- class nouns are identical in singular and plural, and number appears only on the verb, i- for one and zi- for many.

The animate rule

Animals live in the N- class by shape: mbwa, dog; paka, cat; simba, lion; ng'ombe, cow; kuku, chicken; samaki, fish; nyoka, snake. But animals are living beings, and Swahili treats living beings as people for agreement purposes.

• Mbwa anakula. The dog is eating. Class 1 verb prefix, not i-.
• Mbwa wanakula. The dogs are eating. Class 2 verb prefix, not zi-.
• Simba mkubwa. A big lion. Class 1 adjective prefix, not the N- form kubwa.
• Simba wakubwa. Big lions.

This rule saves you from a real ambiguity: since mbwa is both dog and dogs, only the verb prefix tells you how many dogs are at the door. It also gives you the general principle that will serve you for the rest of the language: animate beings take class 1 and 2 agreement whatever class their noun looks like. That is why rafiki, daktari, kijana, and mbwa all behave alike.

Key idea: Animals sit in the N- class by form but take human agreement, so mbwa anakula is one dog and mbwa wanakula is several.

Class 5 and 6: JI-/MA-

Here the plural is loud and the singular is quiet. Class 6 marks the plural with an unmistakable ma-; class 5 usually marks the singular with nothing at all, showing its ji- only in front of short stems.

Singular	Plural	Meaning
jina	majina	name, names
jicho	macho	eye, eyes
jino	meno	tooth, teeth
jiwe	mawe	stone, stones
gari	magari	car, cars
duka	maduka	shop, shops
shamba	mashamba	farm, field
tunda	matunda	fruit, fruits
embe	maembe	mango, mangoes
yai	mayai	egg, eggs
swali	maswali	question, questions
neno	maneno	word, words

Class 6 also holds a family of nouns that exist only in the plural, mostly liquids and masses: maji, water; maziwa, milk; mafuta, oil or fat; machozi, tears; maisha, life. You will never meet a singular of maji, and asking for one is like asking for the singular of English scissors.

The verb prefixes are li- and ya-, and the adjective prefixes are nothing and ma-:

• Gari kubwa limeharibika. The big car has broken down.
• Magari makubwa yameharibika. The big cars have broken down.
• Tunda tamu. Matunda matamu. A sweet fruit. Sweet fruits.

Finally, this class does the opposite of what KI-/VI- does: it makes things bigger. Mtu, person, becomes jitu, a giant. Nyumba, house, becomes jumba, a mansion or palace. Put the two together and you can size anything: kijitu, a little person; mtu, a person; jitu, a giant.

Key idea: JI-/MA- marks its plural with ma- and its singular usually with nothing; verb prefixes are li- and ya-, class 6 holds liquids and masses like maji, and the class also builds augmentatives.

The U- classes, KU-, and the places

Three smaller groups finish the system.

The U- classes (11 and 14). These cover two kinds of noun. First, long thin things and things that come as a mass, whose plurals fall into class 10: ukuta, wall, plural kuta; ufunguo, key, plural funguo; wimbo, song, plural nyimbo; uso, face, plural nyuso. Second, and more commonly, abstractions with no plural at all: uhuru, freedom; upendo, love; urafiki, friendship; umoja, unity; ukweli, truth; uzuri, beauty; ujana, youth; ugonjwa, illness; usiku, night. Verb agreement is u-, and for the class 10 plurals it is zi-. If you have seen the Tanzanian motto Uhuru na Umoja, freedom and unity, you have read two class 14 nouns.

Class 15, KU-. Swahili infinitives are nouns. Kusoma means to read and also the reading; kula means to eat and eating; kucheza means to play and playing. They take ku- agreement: Kusoma ni kuzuri, reading is good. This is how Swahili builds the equivalent of an English gerund, and it needs no extra machinery.

Classes 16, 17, and 18: places. Swahili turns almost any noun into a place expression by adding -ni to the end. This is the single most useful ending in the language for a traveler.

Noun	Locative	Meaning
nyumba, house	nyumbani	at home
shule, school	shuleni	at school
soko, market	sokoni	at the market
mji, town	mjini	in town
meza, table	mezani	on the table
bahari, sea	baharini	at the sea

The three locative classes distinguish shades of place: pa- for a definite spot, ku- for a general area or direction, and mu- for inside something. You meet them most often in the words hapa, here at this exact spot; huko, over there in that general direction; humu, in here inside. They also give you two of the most useful words in Swahili: kuna, there is or there are, and hakuna, there is not, as in the famous hakuna matata, there are no troubles.

Key idea: U- covers long thin things and abstractions, KU- turns any verb into a noun, and the ending -ni turns any noun into a place, with pa-, ku-, and mu- distinguishing exact spot, general area, and inside.

The whole system on one page

Class	Prefixes	Verb prefix	Typical members	Example
1 / 2	m-, mw- / wa-	a- / wa-	people	mtoto, watoto
3 / 4	m-, mw- / mi-	u- / i-	trees, limbs, rivers, towns	mti, miti
5 / 6	(ji-) / ma-	li- / ya-	fruits, pairs, liquids, cars	gari, magari
7 / 8	ki-, ch- / vi-, vy-	ki- / vi-	things, languages, diminutives	kitabu, vitabu
9 / 10	N- (often invisible)	i- / zi-	animals, loanwords, everyday objects	nyumba, nyumba
11 / 10	u- / N-	u- / zi-	long thin things	ukuta, kuta
14	u-	u-	abstractions, no plural	uhuru
15	ku-	ku-	infinitives used as nouns	kusoma
16 / 17 / 18	-ni ending; pa-, ku-, mu-	pa- / ku- / mu-	places	nyumbani, kuna

Photograph this table, copy it by hand, tape it above your desk. Everything in Module 5 hangs from it.

Common misconceptions

• Every Swahili noun shows its plural. N- class nouns do not; nyumba is both house and houses, and only the verb prefix, i- or zi-, tells you which.
• Animals take N- class agreement because they are N- class nouns. They take human agreement: mbwa anakula, mbwa wanakula, simba mkubwa.
• Chakula and chumba are irregular exceptions. They are ordinary KI-/VI- nouns; ki- simply becomes ch- before a vowel, and vi- becomes vy-.
• Maji has a singular form that means one drop of water. It does not. Class 6 holds mass nouns that exist only in that shape.
• The -ni ending is a preposition. It is a suffix that makes a noun locative, and it replaces the separate prepositions English would need.

Recap

• KI-/VI- covers things, languages, and diminutives; ki- becomes ch- and vi- becomes vy- before vowels; agreement is ki- and vi-.
• N- class nouns look identical in singular and plural; agreement is i- and zi-, and adjectives take the assimilating N- prefix.
• Animate beings, including animals, take class 1 and 2 agreement regardless of their noun shape.
• JI-/MA- marks plurals with ma- and singulars usually with nothing; agreement is li- and ya-; class 6 holds maji, maziwa, mafuta.
• U- classes hold long thin objects (plural in class 10) and abstractions such as uhuru and urafiki; KU- makes verbs into nouns.
• The suffix -ni makes any noun locative, and pa-, ku-, and mu- distinguish exact spot, general area, and inside.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Bantu languages. britannica.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
3. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Swahili grammar. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org
4. Yale Council on African Studies. (n.d.). African studies and African language study at Yale. africanstudies.yale.edu

The big picture

You now know which class a noun belongs to. This lesson is about what that knowledge buys you, and the answer is: the whole sentence. Watch one noun drag five other words into line.

Vitabu vyangu viwili vizuri vimepotea. My two good books have been lost.

Five words, and four of them wear the same class 8 mark. Vi-tabu, the noun. Vy-angu, my. Vi-wili, two. Vi-zuri, good. Vi-mepotea, have been lost. Change the noun to a class 7 singular and the whole line re-tunes: Kitabu changu kimoja kizuri kimepotea, my one good book has been lost. This is what people mean when they say a Swahili sentence rhymes with itself, and it is the single most satisfying thing about the language once it clicks.

Today you get the master table, the one you will consult for the rest of the course, plus the four things that must agree: adjectives, possessives, demonstratives, and verbs. Numbers come in Lesson 13 and behave exactly like adjectives, so you already know how they will work.

The master concord table

Copy this out by hand. Nothing in this course repays copying more.

Class	Example	Verb	Adjective	-a of	my	this	that
1 (person)	mtoto	a-	m-, mw-	wa	wangu	huyu	yule
2 (people)	watoto	wa-	wa-	wa	wangu	hawa	wale
3	mti	u-	m-, mw-	wa	wangu	huu	ule
4	miti	i-	mi-	ya	yangu	hii	ile
5	gari	li-	(none)	la	langu	hili	lile
6	magari	ya-	ma-	ya	yangu	haya	yale
7	kitabu	ki-	ki-	cha	changu	hiki	kile
8	vitabu	vi-	vi-	vya	vyangu	hivi	vile
9	nyumba	i-	N-	ya	yangu	hii	ile
10	nyumba (pl)	zi-	N-	za	zangu	hizi	zile
11, 14	ukuta, uhuru	u-	m-, mw-	wa	wangu	huu	ule
15	kusoma	ku-	ku-	kwa	kwangu	huku	kule
16	mahali	pa-	pa-	pa	pangu	hapa	pale

Two patterns hide in that grid, and spotting them cuts your memory load in half. First, the possessive, the -a of association, and the demonstrative for a given class almost always share a consonant: class 7 gives cha, changu, and hiki, class 8 gives vya, vyangu, and hivi, class 10 gives za, zangu, and hizi. Learn the consonant, not thirteen separate words. Second, the this column is built by a small trick explained below, so you do not need to memorize it as a list at all.

Key idea: Each class has one family of agreement markers whose members share a consonant, so learning the class letter, c for 7, v for 8, z for 10, l for 5, gives you the possessive, the of-word, and the demonstrative together.

Adjectives, and the ones that refuse to change

Swahili adjectives follow the noun, always: nyumba nzuri, a good house, never nzuri nyumba. And they split into two groups.

Group one takes class prefixes. These are the old Bantu adjectives, and dictionaries list them with a hyphen to show that a prefix is expected: -zuri, good or beautiful; -baya, bad; -kubwa, big; -dogo, small; -refu, tall or long; -fupi, short; -pya, new; -zee, old (of people); -eupe, white; -eusi, black; -ingi, many; -chache, few; -tamu, sweet; -zito, heavy; -gumu, hard or difficult; -ingine, other.

Class	-zuri, good	-dogo, small	-ingi, many
1: mtoto	mtoto mzuri	mtoto mdogo	-
2: watoto	watoto wazuri	watoto wadogo	watoto wengi
4: miti	miti mizuri	miti midogo	miti mingi
6: magari	magari mazuri	magari madogo	magari mengi
7: kitabu	kitabu kizuri	kitabu kidogo	-
8: vitabu	vitabu vizuri	vitabu vidogo	vitabu vingi
9: nyumba	nyumba nzuri	nyumba ndogo	-
10: nyumba	nyumba nzuri	nyumba ndogo	nyumba nyingi

Two mechanical notes. In the N- classes the prefix assimilates exactly as you learned in Lesson 7: -zuri becomes nzuri, -dogo becomes ndogo, -refu becomes ndefu, -baya becomes mbaya, while -kubwa, -fupi, and -tamu take no visible prefix at all. And when the adjective stem begins with a vowel, the prefix merges with it: ma- plus -ingi gives mengi, mi- plus -ingi gives mingi, wa- plus -ingi gives wengi, m- plus -eupe gives mweupe. Say them a few times and the merger will start to feel automatic rather than arbitrary.

Group two never changes. Most are Arabic borrowings, and they are wonderfully easy: safi, clean; ghali, expensive; rahisi, cheap or easy; hodari, skilled or brave; tayari, ready; kamili, complete; bora, better or best; sawa, equal or fine; hatari, dangerous; muhimu, important; maalum, special; laini, soft.

So mtu safi, kitabu safi, nyumba safi, magari safi. One form for everything. When you are unsure whether an adjective takes a prefix, remember the rule of thumb: if it sounds Arabic, it probably does not change.

Key idea: Adjectives follow the noun; Bantu adjectives listed with a hyphen take the class prefix, while the mostly Arabic invariable adjectives such as safi, ghali, and bora never change.

Possessives

Swahili possessives are two pieces: a class concord on the front and one of six stems on the back.

Stem	Meaning	Class 1	Class 7	Class 8	Class 9	Class 10
-angu	my	wangu	changu	vyangu	yangu	zangu
-ako	your (one person)	wako	chako	vyako	yako	zako
-ake	his, her, its	wake	chake	vyake	yake	zake
-etu	our	wetu	chetu	vyetu	yetu	zetu
-enu	your (several)	wenu	chenu	vyenu	yenu	zenu
-ao	their	wao	chao	vyao	yao	zao

The crucial point, and the one English speakers get wrong for months: the possessive agrees with the thing owned, not with the owner. My book is kitabu changu because kitabu is class 7. My books is vitabu vyangu because vitabu is class 8. My house is nyumba yangu because nyumba is class 9. The changu, vyangu, and yangu all mean my; what changes is the object.

Now the exception you will need on day one. The class 1a kinship nouns, baba, mama, dada, kaka, bibi, babu, and also rafiki, take class 9 possessives even though they take class 1 verb agreement. So it is baba yangu, my father, not baba wangu; mama yako, your mother; rafiki yake, his or her friend. But the verb stays human: Baba yangu anafanya kazi, my father is working. Learn these as fixed phrases and the oddity will stop bothering you.

Key idea: Possessives agree with the thing owned, not the owner; the six stems are -angu, -ako, -ake, -etu, -enu, -ao, and kinship nouns such as baba and mama take yangu rather than wangu.

Demonstratives: this, that, and that one we mentioned

Swahili has three demonstratives where English has two, and all three are built from the class marker.

This, near me. Take the class vowel, put h plus that same vowel in front, then add the class marker. Class 7 is ki, so the vowel is i: h + i + ki gives hiki. Class 8 is vi: h + i + vi gives hivi. Class 6 is ya: h + a + ya gives haya. Class 2 is wa: h + a + wa gives hawa. Once you see the echo, the whole column stops being a list: huyu, hawa, huu, hii, hili, haya, hiki, hivi, hii, hizi, huku, hapa.

That, over there. Add -le to the class marker: yule, wale, ule, ile, lile, yale, kile, vile, ile, zile, kule, pale.

That, the one already mentioned. This one has no English equivalent and is enormously useful in conversation. It is the h- form with -o on the end: huyo, hao, huo, hiyo, hilo, hayo, hicho, hivyo, hiyo, hizo. If someone has just told you about a book, you refer to kitabu hicho, that book, the one we are talking about.

Noun	this	that (over there)	that (mentioned)
mtoto, child	huyu mtoto	mtoto yule	mtoto huyo
kitabu, book	hiki kitabu	kitabu kile	kitabu hicho
nyumba, house	hii nyumba	nyumba ile	nyumba hiyo
magari, cars	haya magari	magari yale	magari hayo

Demonstratives may come before or after the noun. Before the noun is slightly more pointed, closer to English this book here; after the noun is the neutral order. Both are correct, and you will hear both constantly.

Key idea: The this forms are built by echoing the class vowel after an h, the that forms add -le, and the third set adds -o to mean the one we have been discussing.

Word order in the noun phrase

When several modifiers pile up, Swahili has a preferred order:

noun, then demonstrative, then possessive, then adjective, then number.

• Watoto wangu wawili. My two children.
• Kitabu changu kizuri. My good book.
• Watoto hawa wangu wadogo. These small children of mine.
• Nyumba ile kubwa. That big house.
• Vitabu vyangu vitatu vipya. My three new books.

In practice you will rarely stack more than two or three modifiers, exactly as in English. But the ordering is worth knowing, because getting it wrong sounds foreign even when every agreement marker is right.

Building chains

Work these through slowly, noticing every marker.

• Mtoto wangu mdogo anasoma. My small child is reading. Class 1 all the way: wangu, mdogo, a-.
• Watoto wangu wadogo wanasoma. My small children are reading. Class 2: wangu, wadogo, wa-.
• Kitabu chake kipya kimepotea. His new book has been lost. Class 7: chake, kipya, ki-.
• Vitabu vyake vipya vimepotea. His new books have been lost. Class 8: vyake, vipya, vi-.
• Nyumba yetu ndogo iko mjini. Our small house is in town. Class 9: yetu, ndogo, i-.
• Nyumba zetu ndogo ziko mjini. Our small houses are in town. Class 10: zetu, ndogo, zi-.
• Gari lako jipya limeharibika. Your new car has broken down. Class 5: lako, jipya, li-.
• Magari yao mapya yameharibika. Their new cars have broken down. Class 6: yao, mapya, ya-.

Read those eight sentences aloud in order and you will hear the pattern that governs Swahili: pick the noun, read its row in the table, and every other word in the sentence writes itself.

Key idea: Identify the noun's class first, then take every modifier and the verb from that one row of the concord table; this single habit is what turns Swahili grammar from memorization into a system.

Common misconceptions

• The possessive agrees with the owner. It agrees with the thing owned: my book is kitabu changu, my house is nyumba yangu.
• All adjectives take prefixes. The mostly Arabic set, safi, ghali, rahisi, bora, hodari, tayari, muhimu, never changes.
• Adjectives come before the noun, as in English. They follow it: nyumba nzuri, not nzuri nyumba.
• Baba wangu is correct because baba is a class 1 noun. Kinship nouns take class 9 possessives: baba yangu, mama yako, rafiki yake, while their verbs stay human.
• The demonstratives must be memorized as thirteen unrelated words. The this forms echo the class vowel after h-, and the that forms simply add -le.

Recap

• Each class supplies one family of markers for the verb, the adjective, the -a of association, the possessive, and the demonstratives.
• Bantu adjectives take class prefixes and merge with vowel-initial stems (mengi, wengi, mweupe); Arabic-derived adjectives are invariable.
• Possessive stems -angu, -ako, -ake, -etu, -enu, -ao agree with the thing owned; kinship nouns take the class 9 forms.
• Demonstratives: h- plus class vowel for this, class marker plus -le for that, h- form plus -o for the one already mentioned.
• Modifier order is noun, demonstrative, possessive, adjective, number.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Bantu languages. britannica.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
3. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Swahili grammar. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org
4. UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center. (n.d.). African studies and African languages at UCLA. international.ucla.edu

The big picture

Take the word ninakupenda. Five syllables, one word, and it means I love you. Now take it apart:

• ni- I
• -na- present tense
• -ku- you, as the object
• -penda love

That is the whole architecture of the Swahili verb, and it is the same architecture every single time. English builds a sentence by lining up separate words; Swahili builds one by clipping pieces onto a root in a fixed order. Once you know the order, you are not memorizing conjugations at all. You are assembling.

This is the point in the course where the effort you spent on noun classes starts paying interest, because the subject prefix on a verb is a class marker, and you already know them all. And there is a second piece of good news: Swahili verbs are almost perfectly regular. There is no ser and estar, no strong and weak verbs, no list of a hundred irregular past participles. There are four tense markers, one small group of short verbs that behave slightly differently, and that is essentially it.

Today: the infinitive, the template, the present tense, the object slot, and the handful of verbs that need a warning label.

The infinitive and the root

Swahili verbs are listed in dictionaries with ku- on the front: kusoma, to read; kupenda, to love; kufanya, to do or make; kununua, to buy. That ku- is the class 15 prefix from Lesson 7, the one that turns a verb into a noun, which is why kusoma also means the reading.

Strip the ku- and you have the root, the piece you actually build with: -soma, -penda, -fanya, -nunua. Everything else clips onto that.

Notice that Bantu roots end in -a. This is not decoration; that final -a is a grammatical slot, and in the next lesson you will watch it change to -i in the negative and to -e in commands. Learn to see it as the last carriage of the train rather than part of the root.

Here are twenty high-frequency verbs. Say each aloud with its ku-, then again as a bare root.

Infinitive	Meaning	Infinitive	Meaning
kusoma	to read, to study	kuandika	to write
kusema	to say, to speak	kusikia	to hear
kuona	to see	kujua	to know
kupenda	to like, to love	kutaka	to want
kufanya	to do, to make	kupika	to cook
kununua	to buy	kuuza	to sell
kufika	to arrive	kuondoka	to leave
kulala	to sleep, to lie down	kuamka	to wake up
kucheza	to play, to dance	kufundisha	to teach
kuweza	to be able	kupata	to get, to obtain

Key idea: Dictionary verbs carry ku-, which is also the class 15 noun prefix; strip it to get the root, and remember that the final -a is a changeable slot, not part of the root.

The template

Every finite Swahili verb follows this order, with the object slot optional:

SUBJECT PREFIX + TENSE MARKER + (OBJECT PREFIX) + ROOT

Fill the first slot with one of the subject prefixes you already know:

Person	Prefix	With -na- and -soma	English
mimi	ni-	ninasoma	I read, I am reading
wewe	u-	unasoma	you read
yeye	a-	anasoma	he or she reads
sisi	tu-	tunasoma	we read
ninyi	m-	mnasoma	you all read
wao	wa-	wanasoma	they read

That is the entire present tense of every regular Swahili verb. Six prefixes, one marker, one root. Compare with the twenty forms a Spanish or Russian learner faces in the same week.

And when the subject is not a person, the prefix comes from the noun's class, straight out of the concord table in Lesson 8:

• Mti unaanguka. The tree is falling. Class 3.
• Miti inaanguka. The trees are falling. Class 4.
• Gari linakwenda. The car is going. Class 5.
• Magari yanakwenda. The cars are going. Class 6.
• Kitabu kinaanguka. The book is falling. Class 7.
• Vitabu vinaanguka. The books are falling. Class 8.
• Nyumba inauzwa. The house is being sold. Class 9.
• Nyumba zinauzwa. The houses are being sold. Class 10.

Key idea: Subject prefix plus tense marker plus root builds every finite verb, and for non-human subjects the subject prefix is simply the noun's class marker.

The -na- present

The marker -na- covers more ground than any single English tense. Ninasoma can mean I am reading right now, I read regularly, and I have been reading, depending on context. English forces you to choose; Swahili usually does not care.

Swahili	English
Ninasoma Kiswahili.	I am studying Swahili.
Anafanya kazi Nairobi.	He or she works in Nairobi.
Tunakwenda sokoni.	We are going to the market.
Mnapika chakula.	You all are cooking food.
Watoto wanacheza.	The children are playing.
Mama ananunua ndizi.	Mother is buying bananas.

Word order is subject, verb, object, as in English: Mama ananunua ndizi. The subject noun is optional whenever the prefix makes it clear: Ananunua ndizi on its own means he or she is buying bananas.

In relaxed speech, ninasoma is very often shortened to nasoma, and tunasoma to twasoma on the coast. Recognize the short forms; produce the full ones for now.

Key idea: The marker -na- covers both the English simple present and the present progressive, and word order is subject, verb, object, with the subject noun optional.

Three groups of verbs that need a note

Monosyllabic verbs keep their ku-. A handful of very common verbs have roots of a single syllable, and they are too short to carry a stress on their own, so they hang onto the ku- in most tenses. The main ones are -la, eat; -nywa, drink; -ja, come; -wa, be; -fa, die; -pa, give.

Infinitive	Present	Meaning
kula	ninakula	I am eating
kunywa	anakunywa chai	he or she is drinking tea
kuja	wanakuja	they are coming
kupa	ninakupa	I am giving you

Notice that the ku- sits after the tense marker, not before it: ni-na-ku-la. Structurally it is filling the same position as an object prefix, which is why the two never both appear.

Kwenda, to go, is the one genuinely irregular verb you will meet this semester. Its root behaves as -enda but it usually keeps a ku- or kw- as well: ninakwenda, anakwenda, tunakwenda. You will also hear ninaenda and anaenda, which are perfectly normal. Learn both and do not worry about the difference.

Arabic verbs keep their final vowel. Verbs borrowed from Arabic often end in -i, -u, or -e instead of -a, and that vowel never changes, not in the negative and not in commands. Common ones: kufikiri, to think; kurudi, to return; kujibu, to answer; kusafiri, to travel; kujaribu, to try; kuhitaji, to need; kusahau, to forget; kusamehe, to forgive; kubadili, to change; kufahamu, to understand. So ninafikiri, I think; ninarudi, I return.

Key idea: Monosyllabic roots such as -la, -nywa, -ja, and -pa keep ku- after the tense marker; kwenda is irregular; and Arabic-derived verbs never change their final vowel.

The object slot

Between the tense marker and the root sits an optional object prefix. The human ones are:

Object	Prefix	Example	English
me	-ni-	Ananiona	He or she sees me
you (one)	-ku-	Ninakupenda	I love you
him, her	-m-, -mw-	Ninampenda, ninamwona	I love him, I see her
us	-tu-	Wanatuona	They see us
you (several)	-wa-	Ninawaona	I see you all
them	-wa-	Ninawapenda	I love them

For things, the object prefix is the class marker again: ninakisoma, I am reading it, a class 7 book; ninavisoma, I am reading them; ninaisoma, class 9; ninazisoma, class 10; ninalisoma, class 5; ninayasoma, class 6.

When is the object prefix required? The practical rule for a first course: use it whenever the object is a specific person, even if you also name them. Ninamwona Juma, I see Juma, with both the prefix and the name, is normal and correct. For things it is optional and adds definiteness: Ninasoma kitabu is I am reading a book, while Ninakisoma kitabu leans toward I am reading the book.

Key idea: The object prefix sits between the tense marker and the root, uses the class marker for things, and is effectively obligatory for specific human objects even when the person is also named.

Reading a verb cold

Practice the skill that matters: seeing a long verb and slicing it. Cover the answers and try each one.

• tunawaona: tu + na + wa + ona. We see them.
• wanakinunua: wa + na + ki + nunua. They are buying it (a class 7 thing).
• mnanisikia: m + na + ni + sikia. You all hear me.
• ninakunywa: ni + na + ku + nywa. I am drinking. Here the ku- is the monosyllabic root's own, not an object.
• zinauzwa: zi + na + uzwa. They are being sold (class 10).
• kinaanguka: ki + na + anguka. It is falling (class 7).

The one genuine ambiguity is ku-, which can be the object prefix for you or the retained infinitive of a short verb. Context settles it every time, because -nywa and -la are not verbs you can do to a person.

Common misconceptions

• The ku- in kusoma is part of the verb and must always be there. It is the class 15 prefix; you strip it to get the root and add it back only for monosyllabic verbs.
• -na- is only the present progressive. It covers both I read and I am reading; Swahili does not force the distinction.
• Object prefixes are optional in all cases. With a specific human object they are effectively required: Ninamwona Juma, not Ninaona Juma.
• Swahili has many irregular verbs. It has one you will meet this semester, kwenda, plus a small set of monosyllabic verbs that keep ku-.
• The final -a of the root is fixed. It is a slot that becomes -i in the present negative and -e in the subjunctive, as the next lesson shows.

Recap

• The template is subject prefix, tense marker, optional object prefix, root.
• Dictionary form carries ku-; the root is what remains, and Bantu roots end in a changeable -a.
• The -na- present covers both English present tenses: ninasoma, unasoma, anasoma, tunasoma, mnasoma, wanasoma.
• Non-human subjects take their class marker as the subject prefix.
• Monosyllabic verbs keep ku- after the tense marker; kwenda is irregular; Arabic verbs keep their final vowel.
• Object prefixes go between tense and root and are required for specific human objects.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Bantu languages. britannica.com
3. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Swahili grammar. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org
4. UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center. (n.d.). African studies and African languages at UCLA. international.ucla.edu

The big picture

Here is the whole tense system of Swahili, and it fits on one line:

ninasoma, I am reading. nilisoma, I read. nitasoma, I will read. nimesoma, I have read.

One syllable changed each time. The subject prefix did not move, the root did not move, nothing became irregular, and there is no list of exceptions to learn. If you have ever conjugated a French verb through the imperfect, the passe simple, and the pluperfect, take a moment to appreciate what you are looking at.

Today we install those four markers properly, spend real time on -me-, which behaves in a way English speakers consistently misread, and then add the strange and useful habitual hu-, which has no subject prefix at all. We finish with the verb to be and to have, which Swahili handles in a way that will surprise you a second time.

The four markers

Marker	Meaning	Example	English
-na-	present	ninasoma	I read, I am reading
-li-	past	nilisoma	I read, I studied
-ta-	future	nitasoma	I will read
-me-	perfect	nimesoma	I have read

Every person, every class, same drill:

Person	Present	Past	Future	Perfect
mimi	ninafanya	nilifanya	nitafanya	nimefanya
wewe	unafanya	ulifanya	utafanya	umefanya
yeye	anafanya	alifanya	atafanya	amefanya
sisi	tunafanya	tulifanya	tutafanya	tumefanya
ninyi	mnafanya	mlifanya	mtafanya	mmefanya
wao	wanafanya	walifanya	watafanya	wamefanya

Non-human classes work identically, taking their concord as the subject prefix: Gari lilifika, the car arrived. Magari yatafika, the cars will arrive. Kitabu kimepotea, the book has been lost. Nyumba ziliuzwa, the houses were sold.

And the monosyllabic verbs keep their ku- in all four tenses: ninakula, nilikula, nitakula, nimekula; anakuja, alikuja, atakuja, amekuja.

Key idea: Swapping one syllable, -na-, -li-, -ta-, or -me-, changes the tense of any Swahili verb, with no change to the subject prefix or the root.

Why -me- is not the English present perfect

This is the one genuinely tricky idea in the module, so slow down.

The marker -me- reports a completed action whose result is still standing. English sometimes says that with have plus a participle, but very often it says it with an adjective instead, which is why word-for-word translation goes wrong.

Swahili	Literally	Natural English
Amechoka.	He has become tired.	He is tired.
Nimeshiba.	I have become full.	I am full.
Amelala.	He has lain down.	He is asleep.
Nimefurahi.	I have become glad.	I am pleased.
Amevaa koti.	He has put on a coat.	He is wearing a coat.
Nimechelewa.	I have become late.	I am late.
Wamefika.	They have arrived.	They are here.

Now set -me- against -li- and the difference becomes sharp:

• Alilala saa nne. He went to sleep at ten o'clock. A past event, reported as an event.
• Amelala. He is asleep. The result is still true right now.
• Nilikula. I ate.
• Nimekula. I have eaten, which in practice means I am not hungry, do not offer me food.

Practical takeaway: when you want to describe how someone is right now as the result of something that happened, reach for -me-, not the present. Saying ninachoka, I am tiring, sounds odd; nimechoka, I am tired, is what people say.

Key idea: The marker -me- reports a completed action with a standing result, so it very often corresponds to an English adjective: amechoka is he is tired, nimeshiba is I am full.

Anchoring in time

Tenses need time words. Learn these as a block; they will show up in every conversation you have.

Swahili	English	Swahili	English
leo	today	sasa	now
jana	yesterday	kesho	tomorrow
juzi	the day before yesterday	kesho kutwa	the day after tomorrow
zamani	long ago, formerly	baadaye	later
mapema	early	kila siku	every day
wiki iliyopita	last week	wiki ijayo	next week
mwaka jana	last year	mwaka ujao	next year
mara nyingi	often	wakati mwingine	sometimes

Now a short narrative that uses three tenses in a row. Read the Swahili first.

Jana nilikwenda sokoni. Nilinunua ndizi na embe. Nilikutana na rafiki yangu, na tulikunywa chai pamoja. Leo nimechoka, lakini nimefurahi. Kesho nitarudi sokoni na nitanunua samaki.

Yesterday I went to the market. I bought bananas and mangoes. I met my friend, and we drank tea together. Today I am tired, but I am pleased. Tomorrow I will return to the market and I will buy fish.

Six verbs, three tenses, one template. Notice nimechoka and nimefurahi doing the work English does with adjectives, and notice nitarudi keeping its Arabic final -i.

Key idea: Time words such as jana, leo, kesho, and kila siku anchor the tense markers, and a natural paragraph moves between -li-, -me-, and -ta- exactly as English moves between its tenses.

The habitual hu-

Swahili has one more everyday tense, and it breaks the template in an interesting way: it has no subject prefix at all.

The marker is hu-, placed at the very front of the root, and it means does something habitually, as a rule, characteristically.

• Husoma kila siku. He, she, or they read every day.
• Mimi hunywa chai asubuhi. I drink tea in the morning, as a habit.
• Watoto hucheza nje. Children play outside. A general truth about children.
• Wakenya husema Kiswahili na Kiingereza. Kenyans speak Swahili and English.

Because the form carries no person, you usually name the subject, either with a noun or with an independent pronoun: mimi hunywa, sisi husoma, yeye hufanya. This is one of the few places where the pronoun is not optional.

Now the warning, and it matters. The negative prefix for you, which you meet in the next lesson, is also hu-. The two are told apart by the last vowel of the verb:

• husoma, with final -a: habitual. He or she reads regularly.
• husomi, with final -i: negative. You do not read.

One vowel carries the entire difference, which is a good reason to keep vowels pure, as Lesson 2 insisted.

You may also meet a shorter general present in older writing, in poetry, and in coastal speech, formed with a plain -a-: nasoma, wasoma, asoma, twasoma, mwasoma. In modern everyday speech nasoma is usually just a contraction of ninasoma, so you can safely read it that way.

Key idea: The habitual hu- attaches directly to the root with no subject prefix and states a general habit, and it is distinguished from the negative hu- by the final vowel: husoma habitual, husomi negative.

To be and to have

You already know that the present of to be is the invariable ni. For other tenses Swahili uses the verb kuwa, which behaves completely normally:

• Nilikuwa mwanafunzi. I was a student.
• Atakuwa mwalimu. He or she will be a teacher.
• Tulikuwa Nairobi. We were in Nairobi.

To have is stranger and simpler. Swahili has no verb meaning to have. It uses the subject prefix plus na, which is the ordinary word for and or with. So I have is literally I with.

Positive	English	Negative	English
nina	I have	sina	I do not have
una	you have	huna	you do not have
ana	he or she has	hana	he or she does not have
tuna	we have	hatuna	we do not have
mna	you all have	hamna	you all do not have
wana	they have	hawana	they do not have

So: Nina kitabu, I have a book. Ana watoto watatu, she has three children. Sina pesa, I have no money. Nina njaa, I have hunger, meaning I am hungry. Nina kiu, I am thirsty. Nina miaka ishirini, I am twenty. For other tenses, add kuwa: nilikuwa na pesa, I had money; nitakuwa na muda, I will have time.

Finally the impersonal pair: kuna, there is or there are, and hakuna, there is not. Kuna watu wengi, there are many people. Hakuna maji, there is no water. Hakuna matata, there are no troubles. In the past and future these become kulikuwa na and kutakuwa na.

Key idea: kuwa supplies to be outside the present, to have is expressed with the subject prefix plus na, and kuna and hakuna mean there is and there is not.

Common misconceptions

• -me- always translates as the English have plus participle. It reports a standing result and very often becomes an English adjective: amechoka, he is tired.
• -li- and -me- are interchangeable pasts. Alilala reports an event; amelala reports the present state of being asleep.
• Monosyllabic verbs drop ku- in the past and future. They keep it: nilikula, nitakula, nimekula.
• The habitual hu- needs a subject prefix like every other tense. It takes none, which is why you normally supply a noun or an independent pronoun.
• Swahili has a verb meaning to have. It does not; nina is literally I with, and its negative sina is irregular in form but perfectly regular in use.

Recap

• Four markers do the work: -na- present, -li- past, -ta- future, -me- perfect.
• -me- reports a completed action with a standing result and often corresponds to an English adjective.
• Monosyllabic verbs keep ku- in all four tenses; non-human subjects take their class concord.
• The habitual hu- attaches straight to the root with no subject prefix; the final vowel distinguishes it from the negative hu-.
• ni serves as to be in the present, kuwa elsewhere; to have is the subject prefix plus na; kuna and hakuna mean there is and there is not.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
2. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Swahili grammar. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Bantu languages. britannica.com
4. BBC. (n.d.). BBC Swahili: habari na taarifa. bbc.com

The big picture

English negates with a spare part. Take I read, wedge in do not, and you get I do not read. Swahili has no spare part. Negation is built into the verb itself, and, unusually, each tense negates in its own way. That sounds like bad news and is actually a short, learnable list: three patterns, total.

Look at what happens to ninasoma, I am reading:

• sisomi, I do not read. The tense marker vanished entirely and the final vowel changed.
• sikusoma, I did not read. A new marker -ku- appeared where -li- used to be.
• sitasoma, I will not read. The future marker survived untouched.
• sijasoma, I have not read yet. A new marker -ja- replaced -me-.

Four negatives, four behaviors. Learn them as four fixed shapes rather than trying to derive them, and they will come quickly. Then we turn to commands, which are the easiest thing in the whole language, and to the subjunctive, which handles let us, please, and do not.

The negative subject prefixes

Every negative starts here. Five of the six are simply ha- glued to the positive prefix; only the first person is genuinely its own shape.

Person	Positive	Negative	How it is built
mimi	ni-	si-	irregular, learn it
wewe	u-	hu-	ha + u
yeye	a-	ha-	ha + a
sisi	tu-	hatu-	ha + tu
ninyi	m-	ham-	ha + m
wao	wa-	hawa-	ha + wa

Non-human classes follow the same recipe: ha- plus the class prefix. Class 3 u- gives hau-, class 4 i- gives hai-, class 5 li- gives hali-, class 6 ya- gives haya-, class 7 ki- gives haki-, class 8 vi- gives havi-, class 10 zi- gives hazi-. So Kitabu hakipo, the book is not there; Magari hayaji, the cars are not coming.

Key idea: Negative subject prefixes are ha- plus the positive prefix, with si- for I as the one irregular form; non-human classes take ha- plus their concord.

Pattern one: the present negative

This is the strangest and the most common, so learn it first. Two things happen at once: the tense marker disappears completely, and the final -a of the root becomes -i.

Positive	Negative	English
ninasoma	sisomi	I do not read
unasoma	husomi	you do not read
anasoma	hasomi	he or she does not read
tunasoma	hatusomi	we do not read
mnasoma	hamsomi	you all do not read
wanasoma	hawasomi	they do not read

The vowel change catches everyone at first. Say a few until it stops feeling wrong: kupenda gives sipendi, I do not like. Kutaka gives sitaki, I do not want. Kuweza gives siwezi, I cannot. Kuona gives sioni, I do not see. Kufanya gives sifanyi, I do not do. And the single most useful negative in the language, from kujua, to know: sijui, I do not know. You will say it a lot.

Two subgroups behave differently, and both are already familiar. Arabic verbs keep their own final vowel, so there is nothing to change: sifikiri, I do not think; sirudi, I do not return; sisafiri, I do not travel. And monosyllabic verbs drop their ku- here, the one tense where they do: kula gives sili, I do not eat; kunywa gives sinywi; kuja gives siji; and the irregular kwenda gives siendi, I do not go.

Key idea: The present negative takes no tense marker at all and changes the root's final -a to -i, giving sisomi, sipendi, sitaki, siwezi, and sijui.

Pattern two: the past negative

Here the -li- marker is replaced by -ku-, and the final vowel stays -a.

Positive	Negative	English
nilisoma	sikusoma	I did not read
ulisoma	hukusoma	you did not read
alisoma	hakusoma	he or she did not read
tulisoma	hatukusoma	we did not read
mlisoma	hamkusoma	you all did not read
walisoma	hawakusoma	they did not read

Do not confuse this -ku- with the object prefix meaning you, or with the ku- that monosyllabic verbs carry. Position tells you which is which: this one sits immediately after the negative prefix, in the tense slot. For a monosyllabic verb the two simply merge, so I did not eat is sikula, with one ku doing both jobs.

Pattern three: the future negative, and the not-yet perfect

The future is the friendly one: nothing changes except the subject prefix. Keep -ta- and keep the final -a.

sitasoma, hutasoma, hatasoma, hatutasoma, hamtasoma, hawatasoma. I will not read, you will not read, and so on.

The perfect swaps -me- for -ja-, and the meaning shifts in a way worth noticing: it does not mean simply I have not read, but I have not read yet. The expectation that it will happen is baked in.

sijasoma, hujasoma, hajasoma, hatujasoma, hamjasoma, hawajasoma.

• Sijala. I have not eaten yet.
• Hajafika. He or she has not arrived yet.
• Bado hawajaja. They have not come yet. The word bado, still or not yet, is often added for emphasis.

The word bado is worth a line of its own. On its own it answers a question: Umekula? Bado. Have you eaten? Not yet.

Tense	Positive	Negative	What changed
Present	ninasoma	sisomi	marker dropped, final -a becomes -i
Past	nilisoma	sikusoma	-li- becomes -ku-
Future	nitasoma	sitasoma	nothing but the prefix
Perfect	nimesoma	sijasoma	-me- becomes -ja-, meaning not yet

Key idea: Past negatives use -ku-, future negatives keep -ta- unchanged, and perfect negatives use -ja- with the added sense of not yet, often reinforced by bado.

Commands

After all that, the imperative is a holiday. To tell one person to do something, say the bare root.

• Soma! Read!
• Andika! Write!
• Simama! Stand up!
• Ngoja! Wait!
• Kaa! Sit down!
• Sikiliza! Listen!

To tell several people, add -ni, and change the final -a to -e as you do: Someni! Andikeni! Simameni! Kaeni! Sikilizeni!

Four common verbs are irregular in the singular and must be memorized: Njoo! Come! from kuja. Nenda! Go! from kwenda. Lete! Bring! from kuleta. And the monosyllabic verbs keep ku-: Kula! Eat! Kunywa! Drink! Their plurals are Njooni, Nendeni, Leteni, Kuleni, Kunyweni.

One more rule, and it is the one beginners break. If you attach an object prefix, the command becomes a subjunctive, which means the final vowel turns into -e. So you cannot say Saidia mimi; you say Nisaidie!, help me. Likewise Niambie!, tell me; Nipe!, give me; Nionyeshe!, show me. These are among the most useful phrases in the language, and they all end in -e for exactly this reason.

Key idea: A singular command is the bare root, a plural command adds -ni with the final vowel as -e, njoo, nenda, and lete are irregular, and any command with an object prefix takes the subjunctive -e ending, as in nisaidie.

The subjunctive: let us, may I, please, and do not

The subjunctive is a verb with a subject prefix, no tense marker, and a final -e. It covers a wide band of meanings that English handles with several different words.

Swahili	English	Use
Twende!	Let us go!	proposal
Tule!	Let us eat!	proposal
Niende?	Should I go?	asking permission
Nisaidie tafadhali.	Please help me.	polite request
Karibu tule.	Welcome, let us eat.	invitation
Nataka usome.	I want you to read.	after a verb of wanting

Arabic verbs, as always, keep their own final vowel: nirudi, let me return; nifikiri, let me think.

The subjunctive also supplies the negative command, by inserting -si- after the subject prefix:

• Usisome! Do not read! to one person.
• Msisome! Do not read! to several.
• Usiende! Do not go!
• Usiseme! Do not speak!
• Usijali! Do not worry! A phrase you will hear constantly.

Key idea: The subjunctive is subject prefix plus root with a final -e, used for let us, may I, polite requests, and, with -si- inserted, for negative commands such as usijali.

Negating ni and nina

Two more negatives complete the picture, and you already met both. The copula ni negates to si, and it stays invariable:

• Mimi ni mwalimu. Mimi si mwalimu. I am a teacher. I am not a teacher.
• Hiki ni kitabu changu. Hiki si kitabu changu. This is my book. This is not my book.
• Wao ni wanafunzi. Wao si wanafunzi. They are students. They are not students.

And the have construction negates to sina, huna, hana, hatuna, hamna, hawana: Sina pesa, I have no money; Hana muda, he has no time; Hakuna matata, there are no troubles.

Read this short exchange, which uses almost everything in the lesson:

• Asha: Umekula? Have you eaten?
• Tom: Bado, sijala. Sina chakula. Not yet, I have not eaten. I have no food.
• Asha: Basi, twende sokoni! Well then, let us go to the market!
• Tom: Sitaki kwenda sasa. Nimechoka. I do not want to go now. I am tired.
• Asha: Usijali. Nitanunua chakula. Ngoja hapa. Do not worry. I will buy food. Wait here.
• Tom: Asante sana! Nisaidie kesho pia. Thank you very much! Help me tomorrow too.

Common misconceptions

• Swahili has one word for not that you insert into a sentence. Negation lives inside the verb, and each tense has its own pattern.
• The present negative keeps the -na- marker. It drops it completely: not sinasomi but sisomi.
• The final vowel never changes. It becomes -i in the present negative and -e in the subjunctive and plural imperative.
• Sijasoma means I did not read. It means I have not read yet; the plain past negative is sikusoma.
• You can attach an object prefix to a plain imperative. You cannot; adding an object turns the command into a subjunctive, which is why it is nisaidie and not saidia mimi.

Recap

• Negative subject prefixes: si-, hu-, ha-, hatu-, ham-, hawa-, and ha- plus the concord for other classes.
• Present negative: no tense marker, final -a becomes -i (sisomi, sitaki, sijui); Arabic verbs keep their vowel; monosyllabic verbs drop ku- (sili, siji).
• Past negative uses -ku- (sikusoma); future negative keeps -ta- (sitasoma); perfect negative uses -ja- and means not yet (sijasoma), often with bado.
• Commands: bare root in the singular, -ni with final -e in the plural; njoo, nenda, lete are irregular; monosyllabic verbs keep ku-.
• The subjunctive ends in -e and covers let us, may I, polite requests, and, with -si-, negative commands such as usijali.
• ni negates to si and nina to sina.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
2. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Swahili grammar. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Bantu languages. britannica.com
4. Yale Council on African Studies. (n.d.). African studies and African language study at Yale. africanstudies.yale.edu

The big picture

English has one word for of and it never changes: the house of my father, the University of Dar es Salaam, a cup of tea. Swahili has thirteen, one per noun class, and choosing among them is the last big agreement skill you need.

They all look the same underneath: a class concord plus the letter a. Class 7 gives cha, class 8 vya, class 9 ya, class 10 za, class 5 la, class 1 and 2 wa. And the rule for choosing is one sentence long, so learn it now and save yourself a month: the -a agrees with the noun in front of it, not the noun behind it.

Kitabu cha mwalimu, the teacher's book, takes cha because kitabu is class 7. Vitabu vya mwalimu, the teacher's books, takes vya because vitabu is class 8. The teacher never changes anything. Whoever owns it is irrelevant; what matters is the thing owned.

Today: the -a in full, the institutional names it builds, the closely related -enye meaning having, and then the verbs of place that answer the question you will ask more often than any other, Uko wapi?, where are you?

The -a of association

Class	Form	Example	English
1, 2 (people)	wa	mtoto wa Juma	Juma's child
3	wa	mti wa embe	a mango tree
4	ya	miti ya embe	mango trees
5	la	jina la mtoto	the child's name
6	ya	majina ya watoto	the children's names
7	cha	kitabu cha Kiswahili	a Swahili book
8	vya	vitabu vya Kiswahili	Swahili books
9	ya	nyumba ya baba	father's house
10	za	habari za asubuhi	news of the morning
11, 14	wa	uhuru wa nchi	the country's freedom
15	kwa	kusoma kwa watoto	the children's reading
16	pa	mahali pa kazi	the place of work

Look at the class 10 row and something from Lesson 3 should click. Habari za asubuhi, the greeting you learned in your first week, is habari, a class 10 noun, plus za, plus asubuhi. You were already using the -a of association before you knew what it was, which is exactly how greetings teach grammar.

The construction does three jobs. It shows possession: gari la Juma, Juma's car. It shows what something is made of or for: maji ya kunywa, drinking water; kitabu cha hadithi, a story book; chumba cha kulala, a bedroom, literally a room of sleeping. And it links a thing to its category: mwalimu wa hisabati, a mathematics teacher; mwanafunzi wa chuo kikuu, a university student.

Notice how often the second slot is an infinitive: chumba cha kulala, a bedroom; maji ya kunywa, drinking water; siku ya kuzaliwa, a birthday, the day of being born. Class 15 infinitives are nouns, as Lesson 7 promised, so they fit here naturally.

Key idea: The -a of association is a class concord plus a, and it always agrees with the noun before it: kitabu cha, vitabu vya, nyumba ya, nyumba za.

Meals, institutions, and the names of countries

Once you can see this pattern you can read half the public signage in East Africa. Here it is at work in ordinary compounds:

Swahili	Word by word	English
chakula cha mchana	food of the midday	lunch
chakula cha jioni	food of the evening	dinner
chumba cha kulala	room of sleeping	bedroom
mwalimu wa Kiswahili	teacher of Swahili	Swahili teacher
uwanja wa ndege	field of aircraft	airport
siku ya kuzaliwa	day of being born	birthday
Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam	great college of Dar es Salaam	University of Dar es Salaam
Umoja wa Afrika	unity of Africa	African Union
Umoja wa Mataifa	unity of nations	United Nations
Jumuiya ya Afrika Mashariki	community of East Africa	East African Community
Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania	republic of the union of Tanzania	United Republic of Tanzania

That last one is worth staring at, because it chains two associations. Jamhuri is class 9, so it takes ya. Muungano is class 3, so it takes wa. Tanzania's official name is a small grammar exercise, and now you can parse it.

Key idea: Meals, rooms, jobs, and institutions are almost all built with the -a of association, so parsing a sign or an official name is largely a matter of reading the concords.

Possessives in the wild

You built the possessive table in Lesson 8. Here it is doing work, with the kinship exception flagged:

• Kitabu changu kiko wapi? Where is my book?
• Nyumba yetu ni ndogo. Our house is small.
• Watoto wao wanasoma. Their children are studying.
• Gari lako ni jipya. Your car is new.
• Baba yangu ni mkulima. My father is a farmer. Kinship, so yangu rather than wangu.
• Rafiki yake anafanya kazi Mombasa. His friend works in Mombasa. Kinship pattern again, but human verb agreement.

You can also combine both constructions in one phrase, and Swahili does this constantly: jina la rafiki yangu, the name of my friend. Jina is class 5, so la; rafiki takes yangu by the kinship rule.

-enye: having, with, the owner of

A close relative of the -a is -enye, which means having or possessing. It takes the same concords:

Class	Form	Example	English
1	mwenye	mtu mwenye pesa	a person with money
2	wenye	watu wenye njaa	hungry people
7	chenye	chakula chenye chumvi	salty food
8	vyenye	vitabu vyenye picha	books with pictures
9	yenye	nyumba yenye milango miwili	a house with two doors
10	zenye	nyumba zenye bustani	houses with gardens

Used alone, mwenye means an owner: mwenye nyumba, the landlord; mwenye duka, the shopkeeper. Its close cousin mwenyeji, plural wenyeji, means a host or a local resident, which you met in the hospitality proverbs of Lesson 4.

Now the practical payoff. The class 17 form kwenye has become an ordinary preposition meaning at, in, or on, and you will use it every day: kwenye meza, on the table; kwenye soko, at the market; kwenye basi, on the bus; Nenda kwenye duka, go to the shop. It is the flexible alternative to the -ni ending, and when you cannot remember whether a noun takes -ni comfortably, kwenye will always do the job.

Key idea: -enye means having, takes the usual concords, and gives both mwenye, an owner, and kwenye, the everyday preposition meaning at, in, or on.

Saying where things are: -po, -ko, and -mo

Swahili does not use ni for location. It uses a special set of place forms built from the subject prefix plus one of three endings, and the three endings encode a distinction English does not make.

• -po: at a definite, specific spot. Nipo hapa, I am right here.
• -ko: in a general area, or when the exact place is not the point. This is the default and by far the most common.
• -mo: inside something. Kitabu kimo mfukoni, the book is inside the bag.

Subject	-po	-ko	-mo
mimi	nipo	niko	nimo
wewe	upo	uko	umo
yeye	yupo	yuko	yumo
sisi	tupo	tuko	tumo
ninyi	mpo	mko	mmo
wao	wapo	wako	wamo
kitabu (7)	kipo	kiko	kimo
vitabu (8)	vipo	viko	vimo
nyumba (9)	ipo	iko	imo
nyumba (10)	zipo	ziko	zimo
gari (5)	lipo	liko	limo

Notice the third person singular: it is yupo, yuko, yumo, with a special yu- rather than the a- you would expect. It is the one shape in the set you have to memorize.

Now put them to work. These are among the most useful sentences in the language:

• Uko wapi? Where are you? Niko nyumbani. I am at home.
• Kitabu changu kiko wapi? Where is my book? Kiko mezani. It is on the table.
• Mama yuko sokoni. Mother is at the market.
• Watoto wako shuleni. The children are at school.
• Hoteli iko wapi? Where is the hotel?
• Pesa zimo mfukoni. The money is inside the bag.

The negatives are formed with the negative prefixes from the last lesson: sipo, siko, simo; hayupo, hayuko; hawapo; hakipo; haiko. So Yeye hayupo means he or she is not here, which is what you will hear when you telephone someone's office.

Finally, keep kuna and hakuna in the same drawer. Use -po, -ko, and -mo when you have a specific subject in mind, and kuna when you do not: Kuna watu wengi sokoni, there are many people at the market; Hakuna maji, there is no water.

Key idea: Location uses the subject prefix plus -po for a specific spot, -ko for a general area, and -mo for inside; the third person singular is irregular as yupo, yuko, yumo.

Pointing and referring

The demonstratives from Lesson 8 are what make these sentences conversational. The three sets divide up the work cleanly:

• Kitabu hiki ni changu. This book is mine. The h- series, for what is near.
• Kitabu kile ni chake. That book over there is his. The -le series, for what is far.
• Kitabu hicho kiko wapi? Where is that book we were discussing? The -o series, for what has already been mentioned.

The place words work the same way: hapa, right here; pale, over there; huko, there in that general direction; humu, in here. Njoo hapa, come here. Kitabu kiko pale, the book is over there.

Common misconceptions

• The -a agrees with the owner. It agrees with the thing in front of it: kitabu cha mwalimu, vitabu vya mwalimu.
• ni can be used to say where something is. It cannot. Location takes -po, -ko, or -mo: Kitabu kiko mezani, never Kitabu ni mezani.
• -ko, -po, and -mo are interchangeable. They divide place into definite spot, general area, and inside; -ko is the safe default.
• Kwenye is a noun. It began as the class 17 form of -enye but now works as an everyday preposition meaning at, in, or on.
• The third person of these forms is apo or ako. It is yupo, yuko, yumo, with the irregular yu-.

Recap

• The -a of association is a concord plus a, agreeing with the first noun: wa, ya, la, cha, vya, za, kwa, pa.
• It builds possession, purpose, and category, and appears in meals, rooms, jobs, and the official names of institutions.
• Possessives agree with the thing owned; kinship nouns take the class 9 forms, as in baba yangu.
• -enye means having, gives mwenye, an owner, and kwenye, the preposition at, in, or on.
• Location uses subject prefix plus -po, -ko, or -mo, with the irregular yupo, yuko, yumo; kuna and hakuna cover there is and there is not.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
2. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Swahili grammar. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org
3. African Union. (n.d.). African Union. au.int
4. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Tanzania. britannica.com

The big picture

Three skills turn a person who knows grammar into a person who can hold a conversation: describing, asking, and counting. You already have the machinery for the first, since adjectives are just another link in the agreement chain. The second is unusually easy in Swahili, because question words stay where the answer would go instead of jumping to the front. The third has a surprise in it: exactly four of the numbers from one to ten are Arabic, and which four tells you something about a thousand years of trade.

By the end of this lesson you can say that one thing is better than another, ask any of the standard questions, and count and quantify anything. That is most of what a market stall, a bus station, or a classroom requires.

Describing, and comparing

Adjectives follow their noun and take the class prefix, as Lesson 8 established: mtu mzuri, watu wazuri, kitabu kizuri, vitabu vizuri, nyumba nzuri. What Lesson 8 did not give you is how to compare, and here Swahili is refreshingly simple: there are no comparative or superlative endings at all. No -er, no -est, no irregular better and best. Two small words do everything.

kuliko means than. zaidi means more.

• Juma ni mrefu kuliko Ali. Juma is taller than Ali. Literally, Juma is tall than Ali.
• Kitabu hiki ni kizuri kuliko kile. This book is better than that one.
• Nairobi ni kubwa zaidi. Nairobi is bigger.
• Ninapenda chai zaidi kuliko kahawa. I like tea more than coffee.

For the superlative, compare with everything: kuliko wote, than all of them, or kuliko vyote, kuliko zote, matching the class.

• Yeye ni mrefu kuliko wote. He or she is the tallest.
• Kilimanjaro ni mrefu kuliko milima yote Afrika. Kilimanjaro is the highest of all the mountains in Africa.

Two invariable words help here: bora, better or best, and sawa, equal or fine. Chai ni bora, tea is best. Sisi ni sawa, we are equal, or in everyday use, we are all right.

To describe how something is done, Swahili builds adverbs with the class 8 prefix vi-: -zuri gives vizuri, well; -baya gives vibaya, badly. Anasoma vizuri, he reads well. Add to that a handful of very common adverbs that take no prefix at all: sana, very or much; kidogo, a little; polepole, slowly; haraka, quickly; kabisa, completely; tu, only or just; pia, also; bado, still or not yet; sasa, now; pamoja, together.

Key idea: Swahili has no comparative endings; kuliko means than, zaidi means more, and kuliko wote makes a superlative, while vi- turns an adjective into an adverb.

Asking questions

The first thing to know is structural and saves a great deal of trouble: Swahili question words stay in the position the answer would occupy. English drags them to the front (What are you doing?); Swahili leaves them in place (Unafanya nini?, you are doing what?). Once you accept that, every question becomes a statement with one slot swapped.

Question word	Meaning	Example	English
nani	who	Nani anakuja?	Who is coming?
nini	what	Unafanya nini?	What are you doing?
wapi	where	Unakwenda wapi?	Where are you going?
lini	when	Utarudi lini?	When will you return?
kwa nini	why	Kwa nini hukuja?	Why did you not come?
gani	what kind, which	Unasoma kitabu gani?	Which book are you reading?
ngapi	how many	Una watoto wangapi?	How many children do you have?
-je	how	Unaitwaje?	What are you called?
vipi	how	Umefanya vipi?	How did you do it?

Four notes worth having.

Kwa nini is answered with kwa sababu, because. Kwa nini hukuja? Kwa sababu nilikuwa mgonjwa. Why did you not come? Because I was ill.

Gani is enormously productive and never changes shape: habari gani, what news; saa ngapi, what time; rangi gani, what color; chakula gani, what food; mtu gani, what sort of person; namna gani, in what way.

The suffix -je attaches to the end of the verb itself: unaitwaje, what are you called; utafanyaje, how will you do it; ikoje, how is it. It is a suffix, not a separate word, so it never stands alone.

Yes and no questions need nothing at all. Unasoma Kiswahili? with a rising voice is a perfectly good question. If you want to mark it clearly, put the particle Je, at the very front: Je, unasoma Kiswahili? That Je is different from the suffix -je and only ever appears first in the sentence. Answers are ndiyo, yes, and hapana, no. In many everyday exchanges people simply answer with a repeated verb: Umekula? Nimekula. Have you eaten? I have eaten.

Key idea: Question words sit where the answer would sit, gani and ngapi attach to nouns, -je attaches to verbs, and a yes-or-no question needs only intonation or the opening particle Je.

The numbers, and what they reveal

Number	Swahili	Origin	Number	Swahili
0	sifuri	Arabic	10	kumi
1	moja	Bantu	20	ishirini
2	mbili	Bantu	30	thelathini
3	tatu	Bantu	40	arobaini
4	nne	Bantu	50	hamsini
5	tano	Bantu	60	sitini
6	sita	Arabic	70	sabini
7	saba	Arabic	80	themanini
8	nane	Bantu	90	tisini
9	tisa	Arabic	100	mia moja

Stop and look at that origin column, because it is a history lesson disguised as a number line. One to five, plus eight and ten, are Bantu. Six, seven, and nine are Arabic. So are zero, every single one of the tens above ten, mia for hundred, and elfu for thousand. In other words, Swahili kept the numbers you count sheep and children with, and borrowed the numbers you do commerce with. That is exactly the fingerprint you would expect from a coast that traded with Arabia for a thousand years.

Building larger numbers uses na, and:

• 11 kumi na moja, 12 kumi na mbili, 19 kumi na tisa
• 21 ishirini na moja, 45 arobaini na tano, 99 tisini na tisa
• 100 mia moja, 200 mia mbili, 250 mia mbili hamsini
• 1000 elfu moja, 2500 elfu mbili mia tano

Key idea: One to five, eight, and ten are Bantu; six, seven, nine, zero, all the tens, mia, and elfu are Arabic, a direct record of the trading coast, and larger numbers are joined with na.

Numbers that agree, and numbers that do not

Here the noun classes return one last time. Six numerals take class prefixes: -moja, -wili, -tatu, -nne, -tano, and -nane. Everything else, including sita, saba, tisa, kumi and all larger numbers, is invariable.

Class	one	two	three	five	six (fixed)
1, 2: mtu	mtu mmoja	watu wawili	watu watatu	watu watano	watu sita
3, 4: mti	mti mmoja	miti miwili	miti mitatu	miti mitano	miti sita
5, 6: gari	gari moja	magari mawili	magari matatu	magari matano	magari sita
7, 8: kitabu	kitabu kimoja	vitabu viwili	vitabu vitatu	vitabu vitano	vitabu sita
9, 10: nyumba	nyumba moja	nyumba mbili	nyumba tatu	nyumba tano	nyumba sita

The N- class row is the easy one: it takes no visible prefix, so the numbers appear in their dictionary form. That is convenient, because the N- class holds most borrowed nouns, which is where a beginner's counting usually happens: saa mbili, two hours; shilingi tano, five shillings; siku tatu, three days.

The question word -ngapi, how many, agrees exactly like these numerals:

• Una watoto wangapi? How many children do you have?
• Unataka vitabu vingapi? How many books do you want?
• Kuna magari mangapi? How many cars are there?
• Shilingi ngapi? How many shillings? That is, how much?
• Miti mingapi? How many trees?

Finally, ordinals. Swahili builds them with the -a of association plus the number, and the first two are special: kwanza, first, and pili, second, rather than moja and mbili.

• mtoto wa kwanza, the first child; mtoto wa pili, the second child; mtoto wa tatu, the third.
• siku ya kwanza, the first day; mwaka wa pili, the second year; somo la tano, the fifth lesson.

Key idea: Only -moja, -wili, -tatu, -nne, -tano, and -nane take class prefixes; -ngapi agrees the same way; and ordinals use the -a of association with the special forms kwanza and pili.

Putting it together

• Una watoto wangapi? Nina watoto watatu. How many children do you have? I have three children.
• Kitabu gani ni kizuri zaidi? Which book is better?
• Nani ana gari? Juma ana magari mawili. Who has a car? Juma has two cars.
• Kwa nini unasoma Kiswahili? Kwa sababu ninapenda Afrika Mashariki. Why are you studying Swahili? Because I love East Africa.
• Utarudi lini? Nitarudi kesho. When will you return? I will return tomorrow.
• Anasoma vizuri sana, lakini anaandika polepole. She reads very well, but she writes slowly.

Common misconceptions

• Swahili adjectives have comparative forms like taller. They do not; you say mrefu kuliko, tall than.
• Question words move to the front, as in English. They stay in the answer's slot: Unafanya nini?, not Nini unafanya?
• Je and -je are the same word. Je is a particle at the start of a yes-or-no question; -je is a suffix on a verb meaning how.
• All numbers agree with their noun. Only six do: moja, wili, tatu, nne, tano, nane. Sita, saba, tisa, kumi and everything larger are fixed.
• First and second are wa moja and wa mbili. They are wa kwanza and wa pili; the ordinals from three up use the ordinary numeral.

Recap

• Comparison uses kuliko, than, and zaidi, more; kuliko wote gives the superlative; bora and sawa are invariable.
• Adverbs are formed with vi-, as in vizuri and vibaya; sana, kidogo, polepole, haraka, kabisa, and tu take no prefix.
• Question words stay in the answer's position: nani, nini, wapi, lini, kwa nini, gani, ngapi, -je, vipi.
• Numerals one to five, eight, and ten are Bantu; six, seven, nine, zero, the tens, mia, and elfu are Arabic.
• Only -moja, -wili, -tatu, -nne, -tano, and -nane agree, along with -ngapi; ordinals use the -a of association with kwanza and pili.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
2. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Swahili grammar. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Bantu languages. britannica.com
4. UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center. (n.d.). African studies and African languages at UCLA. international.ucla.edu

The big picture

A visitor arranges to meet a friend in Arusha at saa tatu. She arrives at three in the afternoon. He has been waiting since nine in the morning.

This is the single most practical thing in the whole course, and the reason is geography. East Africa sits on the equator, where the sun rises at about six in the morning and sets at about six in the evening, every day, all year, with almost no seasonal drift. Given that, why would you start counting the hours in the middle of the night? Swahili does the sensible thing: the day begins at sunrise, and the first hour of daylight is hour one.

So saa moja is seven o'clock in the morning, one hour after dawn. Saa sita is noon, six hours after dawn. Then the count starts again at sunset: saa moja usiku is seven in the evening, and saa sita usiku is midnight. The arithmetic is simple: take the European hour and add or subtract six.

Today: the clock in full, the days of the week and the surprise hiding in them, dates, and money, which is where you will use your numbers hardest.

The Swahili clock

European	Swahili	Literally
7:00 a.m.	saa moja asubuhi	hour one of the morning
8:00 a.m.	saa mbili asubuhi	hour two
9:00 a.m.	saa tatu asubuhi	hour three
10:00 a.m.	saa nne asubuhi	hour four
11:00 a.m.	saa tano asubuhi	hour five
12:00 noon	saa sita mchana	hour six of the day
1:00 p.m.	saa saba mchana	hour seven
2:00 p.m.	saa nane mchana	hour eight
3:00 p.m.	saa tisa mchana	hour nine
4:00 p.m.	saa kumi jioni	hour ten
5:00 p.m.	saa kumi na moja jioni	hour eleven
6:00 p.m.	saa kumi na mbili jioni	hour twelve
7:00 p.m.	saa moja usiku	hour one of the night
12:00 midnight	saa sita usiku	hour six of the night

The period word is not decoration; it is what tells your listener which half of the day you mean, exactly as a.m. and p.m. do in English. The five periods you learned in Lesson 3 do this work: alfajiri, around dawn; asubuhi, morning; mchana, midday and early afternoon; jioni, late afternoon and evening; usiku, night.

The word saa is a class 9 or 10 noun borrowed from Arabic, and it means hour, clock, and wristwatch all at once. Ask the time with Ni saa ngapi?, literally it is hour how many, and answer with Ni saa tatu asubuhi.

Key idea: The Swahili clock starts counting at sunrise, so the Swahili hour is the European hour plus or minus six, and the period word, asubuhi, mchana, jioni, or usiku, is what fixes which half of the day you mean.

Minutes, halves, and quarters

Four small words handle the rest of the clock face:

• na, and, for minutes past: saa nne na dakika kumi, ten past four Swahili time, which is 10:10 in the morning.
• nusu, half: saa mbili na nusu, half past two, which is 8:30 a.m.
• robo, quarter: saa tatu na robo, quarter past three, which is 9:15 a.m.
• kasoro, less or minus, for minutes to: saa tatu kasoro robo, quarter to three, which is 8:45 a.m. You will also hear it run together as kasarobo.

For an exact hour, add kamili: saa nne kamili, exactly four, which is ten o'clock sharp. And dakika is a minute, while sekunde is a second.

Now the practical warning, because this system trips people up daily. In East Africa many people switch conventions with the language they are speaking: Swahili sentence, Swahili clock; English sentence, European clock. If there is any doubt, ask. Two phrases settle it: saa za Kiswahili, Swahili hours, and saa za Kizungu, European hours. A traveler who says Tutakutana saa nne, saa za Kiswahili? has just saved themselves five hours of waiting.

Key idea: Use na for minutes past, kasoro for minutes to, nusu for half and robo for quarter, and when the convention is unclear, ask whether the time given is saa za Kiswahili or saa za Kizungu.

The days of the week

Here is a second small shock. Look at the names and count.

Day	Swahili	What it literally says
Saturday	Jumamosi	week-day one
Sunday	Jumapili	week-day two
Monday	Jumatatu	week-day three
Tuesday	Jumanne	week-day four
Wednesday	Jumatano	week-day five
Thursday	Alhamisi	from Arabic, the fifth
Friday	Ijumaa	from Arabic, the day of gathering

Juma is the Arabic-derived word for week, and mosi is an old word for one. So Jumamosi is week-day one, and the count runs Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Monday is the third day of the week, which is a genuinely useful thing to know when someone tells you an appointment is on Jumanne and you have to work out that it is Tuesday.

Why does the count start on Saturday? Because the week is anchored on Friday, Ijumaa, the day of congregational prayer in Islam, which has shaped the coastal calendar for a thousand years. The day after the holy day is day one. Thursday and Friday keep their Arabic names outright rather than being numbered, which is the same pattern you saw in the numerals: the everyday core is Bantu, the commercial and religious framework is Arabic.

Related vocabulary: siku, day; wiki, week, borrowed from English; juma, week, the older Arabic form; mwezi, month and also moon, a class 3 noun with the plural miezi; mwaka, year, plural miaka.

Key idea: The Swahili week is numbered from Saturday, so Jumatatu, week-day three, is Monday, and Thursday and Friday keep their Arabic names because the week is anchored on Ijumaa, the day of prayer.

Months and dates

The months are straightforward borrowings from English: Januari, Februari, Machi, Aprili, Mei, Juni, Julai, Agosti, Septemba, Oktoba, Novemba, Desemba. You will also meet the older numbered system, mwezi wa kwanza for the first month through mwezi wa kumi na mbili for the twelfth, which uses the ordinals you learned in the last lesson.

Dates use tarehe, date, followed by the number and the month:

• tarehe tano Machi. 5 March.
• tarehe kumi na tano Julai. 15 July.
• Leo ni tarehe ngapi? What is the date today?
• Tarehe saba Julai ni Siku ya Kiswahili Duniani. 7 July is World Kiswahili Language Day.

And the useful relative expressions: leo, today; jana, yesterday; juzi, the day before yesterday; kesho, tomorrow; kesho kutwa, the day after tomorrow; wiki ijayo, next week; wiki iliyopita, last week; mwezi ujao, next month; mwaka jana, last year.

Money

Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda all use a shilingi, a shilling, so prices in all three are quoted in shilingi, with senti for cents. Rwanda and Burundi use the faranga, franc. The general word for money is pesa, and its more formal cousin is fedha, which also means silver.

Pesa has an interesting passport. It came into Swahili from the Indian Ocean trade, ultimately from the South Asian paisa, and in 2007 it went global when Safaricom in Kenya launched a mobile money service and named it M-Pesa, mobile money. A Bantu language's Indian loanword became the brand name of a system now studied worldwide as a model for banking by phone.

Swahili	English
Bei gani? / Ni bei gani?	What is the price?
Shilingi ngapi?	How many shillings? How much?
Ni ghali sana.	It is very expensive.
Punguza bei kidogo.	Reduce the price a little.
Bei ya mwisho ni ngapi?	What is the final price?
Nitalipa shilingi elfu mbili.	I will pay two thousand shillings.
Nipe chenji, tafadhali.	Give me the change, please.
Sina pesa za kutosha.	I do not have enough money.

Notice how much of your grammar is working in those lines: ngapi agreeing, the -a of association in bei ya mwisho and pesa za kutosha, the future -ta- in nitalipa, the subjunctive in nipe, and the negative in sina.

Key idea: Prices are asked with Bei gani or Shilingi ngapi, adjusted with ghali, rahisi, and punguza bei, and settled with nitalipa and chenji, all of which reuse the grammar of the previous lessons.

A day, timed

• Ninaamka saa kumi na mbili alfajiri. I wake at six in the morning.
• Ninakunywa chai saa moja asubuhi. I drink tea at seven.
• Ninafika kazini saa mbili kamili. I arrive at work at eight exactly.
• Chakula cha mchana ni saa saba. Lunch is at one in the afternoon.
• Ninarudi nyumbani saa kumi na moja jioni. I return home at five in the evening.
• Ninalala saa nne usiku. I go to sleep at ten at night.
• Jumamosi sifanyi kazi. On Saturday I do not work.

Common misconceptions

• Saa tatu means three o'clock. It means nine o'clock, because the count starts at sunrise; subtract or add six.
• The period word is optional politeness. It is what distinguishes morning from evening, exactly like a.m. and p.m.
• Jumatatu means the first day, since it starts the working week. It means week-day three; the count begins on Saturday, Jumamosi.
• Kasoro means past. It means less or to: saa tatu kasoro robo is a quarter to three, which is 8:45 in the morning.
• Everyone in East Africa uses the Swahili clock at all times. Many people switch with the language they are speaking, which is why saa za Kiswahili and saa za Kizungu are useful phrases.

Recap

• The Swahili clock counts from sunrise, so saa moja is 7 a.m. and saa sita is noon; convert by adding or subtracting six.
• Period words asubuhi, mchana, jioni, usiku, and alfajiri fix which half of the day you mean.
• Minutes use na for past and kasoro for to, with nusu, robo, dakika, and kamili.
• The week is numbered from Saturday: Jumamosi, Jumapili, Jumatatu, Jumanne, Jumatano, then Alhamisi and Ijumaa in Arabic.
• Dates use tarehe plus the number plus the month; months are English borrowings or numbered with ordinals.
• Money is pesa or fedha, prices are in shilingi, and bargaining runs on Bei gani, ghali, punguza bei, and bei ya mwisho.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Kenya. britannica.com
3. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Swahili language. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org
4. UNESCO. (n.d.). World Kiswahili Language Day. unesco.org

The big picture

Everything so far has been machinery. This lesson is the day you take the machine out on the road: a family, a kitchen, a market stall, and a bus. The vocabulary here is the vocabulary of ordinary life, and every phrase reuses grammar you have already built, which is why it should feel less like memorizing and more like recognizing.

Watch for that as you go. Chakula cha jioni is the -a of association. Nina njaa is the have construction. Punguza bei is an imperative. Nipe chenji is a subjunctive with an object prefix. Hoteli iko wapi is a location form with a question word. You built all of these; today they simply arrive with new nouns attached.

Family

Start with the words that map cleanly onto English:

Swahili	English	Swahili	English
baba	father	mama	mother
mtoto, watoto	child, children	mwana	son, offspring
binti	daughter	mvulana	boy
msichana	girl	kaka	brother
dada	sister	ndugu	sibling, relative, comrade
babu	grandfather	bibi, nyanya	grandmother
mjukuu	grandchild	binamu	cousin
mume	husband	mke	wife
mkwe	in-law	jirani	neighbor

Now the interesting part, where Swahili and English part company. East African kinship is classificatory, which means that some relatives English lumps together are separated, and some English separates are lumped together.

• Your mother's brother is mjomba, a specific word with no English equivalent narrower than uncle.
• Your father's sister is shangazi, again specific.
• But your father's brother is not an uncle at all. He is another baba, distinguished by age: baba mdogo, little father, if he is younger than your father; baba mkubwa, big father, if older.
• Similarly your mother's sister is another mama: mama mdogo or mama mkubwa.

This is not a quirk of vocabulary; it reflects a real social structure in which your father's brother has something close to a father's responsibilities toward you. A visitor who hears someone introduce two different men as baba has not misheard.

Remember the possessive rule from Lesson 8: kinship nouns take the class 9 possessive but keep human verb agreement. So: Baba yangu ni mkulima, my father is a farmer. Dada yake anasoma chuo kikuu, his sister is at university. Nina kaka wawili na dada mmoja, I have two brothers and one sister. Familia yangu ni kubwa, my family is big; you will also hear jamaa for family or relatives.

Key idea: Swahili kinship separates mjomba and shangazi as distinct relatives while treating a father's brother as another baba and a mother's sister as another mama, sized by mdogo and mkubwa.

Food

The staple of much of Tanzania and Kenya is ugali, a stiff porridge of maize flour eaten with the right hand and dipped into a stew. Around it sit the rest of the plate:

Swahili	English	Swahili	English
ugali	stiff maize porridge	wali	cooked rice
mchele	uncooked rice	mchuzi	stew, sauce, curry
nyama	meat	kuku	chicken
samaki	fish	maharagwe	beans
mboga	vegetables	sukumawiki	collard greens
mkate	bread	chapati	flatbread
viazi	potatoes	mihogo	cassava
matunda	fruit	embe	mango
ndizi	banana	nanasi	pineapple
chumvi	salt	sukari	sugar

The name sukumawiki deserves a pause, because it is one of the most quietly moving words in the language. It is built from kusukuma, to push, and wiki, week: the cheap green that pushes the week along, that stretches the food until payday. A whole household economy sits inside one vegetable's name.

On the coast the cooking changes completely, because the coast is where the spice trade landed. Zanzibar and Pemba grew cloves for the world, and the coastal kitchen still shows it: karafuu, cloves; mdalasini, cinnamon; iliki, cardamom; tangawizi, ginger; pilipili, chili. Coconut is everywhere, as nazi, and its milk, tui la nazi, goes into rice and fish alike. Coastal dishes to know by name: pilau, spiced rice; biriani; samaki wa kupaka, fish in coconut sauce; and the ubiquitous street food, mandazi, a lightly sweet fried dough, and nyama choma, grilled meat.

Drinks: chai, tea, either chai ya maziwa, with milk, or chai ya rangi, literally tea of color, meaning black; kahawa, coffee; maji, water; maziwa, milk; juisi, juice.

The meals, which you can now parse yourself: kifungua kinywa, breakfast, literally the opener of the mouth; chakula cha mchana, lunch; chakula cha jioni, dinner.

And the phrases of the table:

• Nina njaa. I am hungry. Literally I have hunger.
• Nina kiu. I am thirsty.
• Karibu chakula. Come and eat.
• Chakula ni kitamu sana. The food is very delicious.
• Nimeshiba, asante. I am full, thank you.
• Sili nyama. I do not eat meat. Note the monosyllabic present negative from Lesson 11.

One point of etiquette: in many households people eat with the right hand from shared dishes, and hands are washed at the table before and after. Follow your host, use the right hand, and accept at least a little of what is offered.

Key idea: Ugali and wali anchor the inland plate while the coastal kitchen runs on coconut and the spices of the Zanzibar trade, and the table phrases reuse the have construction, the -a of association, and the negative.

The market

A soko is a market, and sokoni is at the market; a duka is a shop, and dukani is at the shop. In a market, bargaining is normal and expected. In a supermaketi it is not, any more than it would be in a supermarket at home.

The etiquette matters as much as the vocabulary, and it follows directly from Module 2: you greet first. Walking up to a stall and demanding a price is the same mistake as skipping hujambo. Bargaining is a friendly, slightly theatrical negotiation between two people who have greeted each other, not a contest.

Here is the full sequence:

• Mnunuzi: Shikamoo, mama. Respectful greeting to the seller.
• Muuzaji: Marahaba. Karibu. Marahaba. Welcome.
• Mnunuzi: Asante. Kuna maembe leo? Thank you. Are there mangoes today?
• Muuzaji: Ndiyo, yapo. Mazuri sana. Yes, there are. Very good ones.
• Mnunuzi: Bei gani? What price?
• Muuzaji: Shilingi elfu tatu. Three thousand shillings.
• Mnunuzi: Aah, ni ghali sana! Punguza bei kidogo. Ah, that is very expensive! Reduce the price a little.
• Muuzaji: Elfu mbili na mia tano. Bei ya mwisho. Two thousand five hundred. Final price.
• Mnunuzi: Sawa, nitachukua matatu. Nipe chenji, tafadhali. Fine, I will take three. Give me change, please.
• Muuzaji: Asante sana. Karibu tena! Thank you very much. Come again!

Count the grammar in that exchange: a respect greeting, kuna and the class 6 location form yapo, an agreeing adjective in mazuri, a question word, numbers in the thousands, an invariable Arabic adjective in ghali, an imperative in punguza, the -a of association in bei ya mwisho, a future in nitachukua, an agreeing numeral in matatu, and a subjunctive with an object prefix in nipe. Ten lessons of grammar, one bag of mangoes.

Key idea: Bargaining is expected in markets but not supermarkets, it begins with a greeting, and its standard moves are Bei gani, ni ghali sana, punguza bei, bei ya mwisho, and nitachukua.

Getting around

Public transport in East Africa runs on shared minibuses, and they have local names worth knowing: daladala in Tanzania, matatu in Kenya, and the motorcycle taxi, bodaboda, everywhere. Add basi, bus; teksi, taxi; gari, car; treni, train; meli, ship; and ndege, which means both bird and aeroplane, so an airport is an uwanja wa ndege, a field of aircraft.

The words you will need at the stop: nauli, the fare; kituo, a stop or station; tiketi, ticket; safari, journey. And the phrases:

• Nataka kwenda Arusha. I want to go to Arusha.
• Nauli ni shilingi ngapi? How much is the fare?
• Basi linaondoka saa ngapi? What time does the bus leave?
• Shusha hapa, tafadhali. Let me off here, please.
• Safari njema! Have a good journey!

For directions, the core set is small:

Swahili	English	Swahili	English
kushoto	left	kulia	right
moja kwa moja	straight ahead	mbele	in front, ahead
nyuma	behind	karibu	near
mbali	far	juu	up, above
chini	down, below	kona	corner
barabara	road	njia	way, path

And a short exchange that uses them:

• Samahani, soko liko wapi? Excuse me, where is the market?
• Nenda moja kwa moja, kisha geuka kushoto kwenye kona. Go straight ahead, then turn left at the corner.
• Ni mbali? Is it far?
• Hapana, ni karibu. Dakika tano tu. No, it is near. Only five minutes.
• Asante sana! Thank you very much!

Notice soko liko wapi: soko is class 5, so its location form is liko, not iko. That one letter is the whole reason Module 3 exists.

Key idea: Ask for a place with X iko wapi, adjusting the concord to the noun's class, and answer with moja kwa moja, kushoto, kulia, karibu, and mbali.

Common misconceptions

• Uncle and aunt translate straightforwardly. Mjomba is specifically a mother's brother and shangazi a father's sister, while a father's brother is baba mdogo or baba mkubwa.
• Bargaining means haggling aggressively. It is a friendly exchange between people who have greeted each other, and it does not belong in a supermarket.
• Ugali is a side dish like rice. It is the staple around which the meal is built, eaten by hand and dipped into mchuzi.
• Chai ya rangi is a flavored tea. Rangi means color; it is black tea, without milk.
• Soko iko wapi is correct. Soko is class 5, so the location form is liko: soko liko wapi.

Recap

• Kinship: mjomba and shangazi are specific, while a father's brother is baba mdogo or mkubwa and a mother's sister is mama mdogo or mkubwa.
• Kinship nouns take class 9 possessives, baba yangu, but keep human verb agreement.
• Ugali, wali, mchuzi, nyama, samaki, and sukumawiki anchor the everyday plate; the coast adds coconut, cloves, cardamom, pilau, and biriani.
• Meals are kifungua kinywa, chakula cha mchana, and chakula cha jioni; the table runs on nina njaa, karibu chakula, and nimeshiba.
• Market moves: greet, kuna, bei gani, ni ghali sana, punguza bei, bei ya mwisho, nitachukua, nipe chenji.
• Transport is daladala, matatu, bodaboda, basi, and ndege; directions are kushoto, kulia, moja kwa moja, karibu, mbali.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili people. britannica.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Zanzibar. britannica.com
3. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. (n.d.). Stone Town of Zanzibar. whc.unesco.org
4. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Tanzania. britannica.com

The big picture

You have reached the point where a language stops being a set of rules and starts being a place people live. This last lesson is about that place: the proverbs Swahili speakers quote the way English speakers quote nothing at all any more, the poetry that was written on this coast before the Latin alphabet arrived, the music that carries the language across a continent, and the political fact that an African language is now a working language of the African Union.

It is also, honestly, a lesson about limits. A text course can describe taarab; it cannot play you a note of it. What this page can do is tell you exactly what to listen for and where the recordings live, so that the moment you close it you know what to search for. That is the last piece of work we will do together, and then we will map the road to Swahili II.

Methali: the proverbs

A methali is a proverb, and Swahili speech is full of them. They appear in speeches, in sermons, in newspaper headlines, in arguments between neighbors, and printed along the hem of a length of cloth. Quoting one is not old-fashioned; it is a normal way of making a point with authority and economy.

Here are ten worth knowing. Read the Swahili first, then the gloss.

Methali	Meaning
Haraka haraka haina baraka.	Hurry, hurry has no blessing.
Pole pole ndio mwendo.	Slowly, slowly is indeed the way to travel.
Haba na haba hujaza kibaba.	Little by little fills the measure.
Umoja ni nguvu, utengano ni udhaifu.	Unity is strength, division is weakness.
Penye nia pana njia.	Where there is a will, there is a way.
Akili ni mali.	Wits are wealth.
Mgeni njoo, mwenyeji apone.	Let the guest come, so the host may prosper.
Usipoziba ufa utajenga ukuta.	If you do not seal the crack, you will build a wall.
Mtoto umleavyo ndivyo akuavyo.	As you raise a child, so it grows.
Asiyefunzwa na mamaye hufunzwa na ulimwengu.	Whoever is not taught by their mother will be taught by the world.

Now the satisfying part: you can take several of these apart. Try it before reading on.

• Haraka haraka haina baraka. Haraka is haste, a class 9 noun. Haina is the class 9 negative of ina, it has: ha- plus i- plus na. So the proverb says haste does not have blessing. That is the negative of the have construction from Lesson 10, sitting in a proverb.
• Umoja ni nguvu. Umoja is a class 14 abstraction, unity, exactly like uhuru and urafiki. Ni is the invariable copula from Lesson 5. Utengano, separation, is another class 14 noun built the same way.
• Haba na haba hujaza kibaba. The verb hujaza is the habitual hu- from Lesson 10, attached straight to the root -jaza, to fill, with no subject prefix. Kibaba is a class 7 measuring container, so it takes ki-.
• Penye nia pana njia. Penye is the class 16 form of -enye, having, from Lesson 12: at the place having. Pana is the class 16 there is. So it reads, at the place having intention, there is a road.

Two of these are so common they function as everyday phrases. Pole pole is said to anyone hurrying, and it is close to a national philosophy in Tanzania. Haraka haraka haina baraka is what you will hear if you complain about a bus.

Proverbs also get worn. The kanga is a rectangle of printed cotton, worn by women across East Africa, and a genuine kanga carries a proverb or saying, the jina, printed along one edge. Choosing which kanga to wear on a given day is a way of saying something without saying it: a message to a rival, a comment on a marriage, a piece of advice to a daughter. It is the only garment in the world that is also a sentence.

Key idea: Methali are living, everyday speech, and after this course you can parse them: haina is a class 9 negative, hujaza is the habitual, penye is class 16 -enye, and umoja is a class 14 abstraction.

A literature older than the Latin alphabet

Swahili was written for centuries before anyone wrote it in the letters you have been reading. The script was Arabic, adapted for Swahili sounds, a practice known as Ajami. The oldest dated Swahili manuscript that survives is the Utendi wa Tambuka, copied in 1728 on the island of Pate, and the tradition it belongs to is older still.

Its form, the utendi or utenzi, is a long narrative poem in short rhymed stanzas, and it was the main vehicle of Swahili literature for generations. The most famous single poem in the tradition is the Utendi wa Mwana Kupona, a nineteenth-century mother's verse letter of advice to her daughter, still quoted today.

The twentieth century brought prose and the Latin script. Shaaban Robert (1909-1962) is the towering figure, a Tanzanian poet, essayist, and novelist so central that he is routinely called the father of Swahili literature; he wrote to prove that Kiswahili could carry philosophy and art as well as any European language, and he won the argument. Euphrase Kezilahabi later broke the classical verse forms open and wrote modernist novels and free verse. Julius Nyerere, meanwhile, translated Shakespeare, publishing Kiswahili versions of Julius Caesar and The Merchant of Venice as Juliasi Kaisari and Mabepari wa Venisi, an act that was as much political argument as literary exercise.

The coast also produced a Nobel laureate. Abdulrazak Gurnah, born in Zanzibar in 1948, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021 for novels that take the Swahili coast, colonialism, and exile as their subject. He writes in English, which is part of the story rather than a departure from it.

Key idea: Swahili literature runs from Ajami manuscripts and the utendi verse tradition through Shaaban Robert and Kezilahabi to Abdulrazak Gurnah's Nobel Prize, a continuous tradition several centuries deep.

Taarab and bongo flava

Two musical worlds carry the language, and they could hardly be more different.

Taarab is the classical music of the Swahili coast: sung poetry backed by an orchestra of strings, accordion, oud, qanun, and percussion, in which Arab, Indian, and Swahili elements meet. It took its modern form in Zanzibar in the late nineteenth century under the patronage of the sultan's court, and its heart is the words. A taarab lyric is dense, layered poetry, frequently with a second meaning aimed at a specific person in the room, which is why audiences react to lines the way other audiences react to solos.

Its great early figure is Siti binti Saad, born around 1880 into a poor village family on Zanzibar, who became the first East African singer to record commercially in the 1920s. She sang in Kiswahili rather than Arabic, which was a decision with consequences: it helped establish Swahili as a language of recorded, mass-market music and made a village woman's voice the sound of the coast. Bi Kidude, who performed into extreme old age and died in 2013, carried the tradition into living memory.

Bongo flava is the other pole: Tanzania's homegrown fusion of hip hop, R&B, and local styles, born in Dar es Salaam in the 1990s and now the dominant popular music of the region. The name is itself a piece of Swahili wordplay. Bongo is slang for Dar es Salaam and for Tanzania generally, from ubongo, brain, the joke being that you need your wits to survive in the city. Its stars, among them Diamond Platnumz, Ali Kiba, Professor Jay, and Lady Jaydee, are heard from Kampala to Kinshasa, and their lyrics are one of the main ways young people across the region absorb Kiswahili. Kenya's parallel scenes, genge and Sheng-inflected hip hop, do the same work in the north.

Now the honest limit. This page cannot play you a single bar of either. What it can do is give you the search terms: look for Siti binti Saad and Bi Kidude for taarab, and for bongo flava start with any of the names above. When you listen, try to catch the words you know, and expect the vowels to be exactly as pure as Lesson 2 promised. Music is the single best listening practice available to a learner who has finished a text course, because you can hear the same line as many times as you need.

Key idea: Taarab is the coast's classical sung poetry, shaped by Siti binti Saad's Kiswahili recordings of the 1920s, while bongo flava is the Dar es Salaam pop fusion that now carries the language across the region.

Kiswahili in the world

In the last two decades Kiswahili has acquired a formal status that no other indigenous African language holds.

• It is an official language of the East African Community and, since 2019, of the Southern African Development Community.
• In February 2022 the African Union adopted it as an official working language, alongside Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. It is the only African language on that list.
• In November 2021 UNESCO declared 7 July World Kiswahili Language Day, the first day the organization has dedicated to any African language.
• South Africa introduced it as an optional school subject in 2020, and Uganda and Rwanda have both expanded it in their school systems.

Behind that lies an old argument, and it is worth stating plainly because it is the reason many people study this language. When African states became independent, most kept the language of the departing empire for government, courts, and higher education, on the practical grounds that no local language was ready. Tanzania did not. Julius Nyerere made Kiswahili the language of the nation, of primary schooling, of parliament, and of the courts, and translated Shakespeare into it to make the point that it lacked nothing. The country's motto, Uhuru na Umoja, freedom and unity, is in Kiswahili; Kenya's, Harambee, let us all pull together, is too. Whether an African lingua franca can carry science, law, and administration is no longer a theoretical question in East Africa. It has been answered.

English has been quietly borrowing from this language for a century. Safari is simply the Swahili for journey. Jenga, the block-stacking game, is the imperative build. Simba, rafiki, and hakuna matata reached a global audience through one film. And the Star Trek character Uhura was named for uhuru, freedom, at the height of African independence.

Key idea: Kiswahili is an official working language of the African Union, an EAC and SADC language, and the first African language with a UNESCO day, the outcome of a deliberate post-independence decision to build a state on an African language.

The road to Swahili II

Look at what you can do. You can read any written Swahili word aloud correctly. You can greet anyone appropriately, by age and situation. You can assign a noun to its class, form its plural, and run its agreement through adjectives, numbers, possessives, demonstratives, and verbs. You can build and negate verbs in four tenses, give commands, and use the subjunctive. You can ask any question, count, handle money, and tell the time on a clock that runs six hours off your own.

Here is what comes next, so you know the shape of the country ahead.

• Verb extensions. This is the great engine of Swahili and the biggest single thing still in front of you. Suffixes slot in before the final vowel and change what the verb means: -w- makes a passive, kupenda to love becoming kupendwa to be loved; -i- or -e- makes an applicative, kupika to cook becoming kupikia to cook for someone; -esha or -isha makes a causative, kusoma to read becoming kusomesha to teach; and -an- makes a reciprocal. You have been using one of these since Lesson 3 without knowing it: tutaonana, we will see each other, is kuona with -an- inside it.
• The remaining tenses and moods: -ki- for if and when, -ka- for a chain of consecutive events in a narrative, -nge- and -ngali- for conditionals, and -sha- for already.
• Relative clauses, both with the word amba- and with the infixes that tuck the relative marker inside the verb, which is how Swahili says the person who came and the book that I read.
• Reading. Kiswahili news sites, the Kiswahili Wikipedia, children's books, and song lyrics are all within reach of a determined first-year student.

Four pieces of advice for the gap between courses. Find a person to talk with, because a text course has taught you a system and only a human can teach you a rhythm. Listen daily, even passively, to Kiswahili radio or music. Label things in your house with their class prefixes, since class membership is learned by repetition and nothing else. And keep a notebook of methali; a proverb learned whole teaches you five grammatical points at once, which is exactly what happened four sections ago.

Karibu tena. Safari njema.

Common misconceptions

• Swahili literature began with European contact. Swahili was written in Arabic script for centuries; the oldest dated manuscript is from 1728, and the verse tradition behind it is older.
• Taarab is Arabic music performed in East Africa. It is a coastal Swahili form drawing on Arab, Indian, and African elements, and Siti binti Saad's decision to record in Kiswahili was central to its identity.
• Bongo flava is named after a person or place abroad. Bongo is slang for Dar es Salaam and Tanzania, from ubongo, brain.
• Kiswahili's official status is symbolic. It is a working language of the African Union and the EAC, and the medium of government, courts, and schooling in Tanzania.
• Proverbs are archaic decoration. They are ordinary current speech, quoted in headlines and arguments and printed on kanga cloth.

Recap

• Methali are everyday speech, and this course has given you the grammar to parse them.
• The kanga carries a printed proverb and is used to send messages without speaking.
• Swahili literature runs from Ajami manuscripts and the utendi through Shaaban Robert and Kezilahabi to Abdulrazak Gurnah's 2021 Nobel Prize.
• Taarab is the coast's classical sung poetry; bongo flava is the Dar es Salaam pop fusion that now spreads the language.
• Kiswahili is an African Union working language, an EAC and SADC language, and has a UNESCO day on 7 July.
• Swahili II brings verb extensions, the remaining tenses, and relative clauses; tutaonana already contains the reciprocal -an-.

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili literature. britannica.com
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Swahili language. britannica.com
3. UNESCO. (n.d.). World Kiswahili Language Day. unesco.org
4. African Union. (n.d.). African Union. au.int
5. Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). Taarab. In Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org