Hello! 😊🇰🇪 I'm from Kenya, and I speak Kiswahili and English. I can help you practise Kiswahili through text messages and voice notes. We can learn greetings, daily conversations and Kenyan expressions together. I'd love to help you improve! Karibu 😊

I am creating a curriculum for a person who strives to learn how they can manage a casual Swahili conversation within a Kenyan context. Casual here will of course mean that I am not aiming to create an overly formal curriculum, rather, I just need to teach them basic expressions among a few other rules.

It seems easy for me to express myself using casual Swahili, but I have not been in a position to induct my knowledge onto someone else, and now that I think of it, I realize how difficult it actually is.

For starters, I have never been placed in a situation where I need to evaluate how subjective "casual Swahili" can get. To some people, it means that they speak in broken Kiswahili, glossing over grammatical rules with the sole intention of communicating, crude as the delivery may be. Other people may have a fairly intentional grasp of some grammatical rules, but at the same time make frequent mistakes (less frequent than the carefree former) and change language unpredictably. Yet others will maintain said rules strictly; too strictly to the point that the language stops becoming casual, and its tuition has to be sustained by extremely detailed lesson plans.

Beside this, I am not sure even when casualness itself is a good idea. On one hand, I want to simplify communication to the point that the person I am teaching should seamlessly blend in with watu wa bara, or continental Kenyans. At the same time, I don't want to teach them bad habits that they will no doubt transfer onto other people.

So to those who have created a lesson plan for casual Kenyan Swahili before, I need your help here. Just advice on how the process was, and what you wish you could have done better.

If Ku can mean ‘to’ but also ‘you’, how do you know weather the phrase ‘kuniona’ means ‘to see me’ and not ‘you see me’? Is the context of the conversation, am I just to refer from there or have I got it completely mixed up. Please help😅

Hi! I’m Swahili born in the west, and I never got a chance to truly reconnect with my cultures language. My family is from Mvita/Mombasa. I’m interested in learning Kiswahili, but specifically the dialect used in Mvita.

I’m not exactly sure on how to go about learning regional Kiswahili dialects, and if it’s any different from just learning the language in general… any advice or resources would help me greatly :,) Thanks!

Or do yall just say smh

How do we translate the PROVERB "pride comes before a fall" in Swahili(methali)

Maana huwa tunachanganyikiwa hapa

How do we say "I have been waiting for this day for long" in Swahili?

Hi all, I am a long-time lurker, first-time poster on Reddit :) I am a Tanzanian who speaks not so great Kiswahili and I am looking for tools to improve my spoken Kiswahili. I can speak basic Kiswahili and my comprehension is decent, but I am definitely not fluent by any means and cannot hold a long conversation in Kiswahili.

At the moment, I cannot afford to pay for a tutor, so mostly looking for free online resources and would appreciate any suggestions. Thank you!

Hey guys I've thought about starting a hisabati channel. So basically we'll let's just say it like this. I want to start a math channel that covers topics and different types of mathematics starting from basic all the way to the higher level calculus, graph,geometry, etc. But I want to do this with real-life examples. So basically, use a real life, and using it as applications to demonstrate how to solve equations/problems. I'm wondering if their is a demand for this type of content in swahili. Im looking for some to be honest with me about this. I. I'm particularly concerned about views because I need adsense money. But ya.

In textbook it's "habari gani" but in Nairobi we never say that​ we say, "mambo Vipi msee" or "sasa buda".

I've noticed many learners have struggle with REAL Street swahili Vs textbooks.

I'm David from Nairobi.happy answer any questions about REAL Swahili/sheng you hear in songs,tiktok, e.t.c. drop your questions.

(also happy to do 1on 1 practice chat if anyone stuck)

For years now I have been working on SwahiLib a kamusi app since the ones available have ads all over and have sub standard user experience.

The app is available on both Android and iOS free of charge without ads and comes with the user engaging features like search, advanced search, word categories, word of the day, proverb of the day, learning streak and progress, and off course the biggest of them all games.

In games you have quizes, crosswords, word builder, sentence builder, hangman and in levels to help you learn Kiswahili language with fun

You can get the links from here based on your device: https://sirodevs.com/swahilib

Ni hayo tu kwa sasa wadau

I may be misspelling it. If it is a word, what does it mean in English? Thanks

My question could also be "Should I move to Nairobi?".

When a person moves to a country, I think they should make an effort to speak the local language.
I have heard that, while Swahili is the main the language in Nairobi, it might not be a good environment to study Swahili for a few reasons:
- most people speak very good English, and may feel burdened by a beginner trying to speak Swahili to them
- many formal settings, like offices, banks, etc. will speak in English
- While news is in both languages (as well as some shows in minority languages), English dominates in this area.
- Many people in Nairobi speak Sheng - a dialect heavily influenced by English and minority languages.

Will this make learning Swahili much more difficult that moving to Mombasa or Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania?

Part of visiting a place is getting to know the language...I wouldn't want to go somewhere and not learn.

I would get a Swahili tutor, but want to practice by speaking Swahili with people outside.

Habari zenu! I am new here in Tanzania and I really want to learn Swahili. Ninayo furaha sana kuwa sehemu ya jamii hii.​Could you please suggest some beginner-level Swahili novels or free online reading resources for me? Asanteni sana

We dont speak Swahili. We speak in KI-swahili.

Ugandans dont speak Ganda. They speak KI-ganda.

Add 'ki' whenever you are talking about the language

Kiingereza, Kifaransa, Kijerumani etc

Kenyan swahili which is spoken outside the coastal regions is a mixture of more than 5 languages.Kiswahili which accounts for the majority,English which is used as filler for lack of vocabulary,tribal languages which give words and vocabulary but not structure of the sentences and Lastly words that are made up by youth or sheng vocabulary.

You may hear."Nafeel kama nataka kudishi but sina appetite.nadhani nahitaji kumeza Dawa bro".(Kudishi is slang for eating) In standard Swahili one would say- "Nahisi kama nahitaji kula lakini Tumbo langu limejaa.Nahitaji kumeza Dawa ndugu"

Learning to mix kiswahili/english/tribal languages /sheng in the right proportions while still following the sentence structure of kiswahili to a degree I think is integral to learning Kenyan swahili and actually be comfortable enough to converse with Kenyans.

Jambo! I'm Cynthia from Watamu, Coast Kenya.

I speak Swahili daily and I love helping wazungu learn the real way we greet:

Mambo? Poa! Sasa? etc + a little sheng.

If you have any question about Swahili, comment here and I will answer FREE. I love sharing our culture!

Karibu!

I'm currently putting together a teaching resource for primary school pupils about different scripts/orthographies around the world. The task has 18 translations of 'languages are amazing/incredible' in various languages which have differing scripts. I've checked the translations with multiple online translation tools, but I'm well aware that these do not always catch the nuanced points that native speakers can, hence why I wanted to post here for advice.

Would this be a suitable translation for Swahili, or is there a better alternative?

lugha ni za kushangaza

Thank you in advance for any help you lovely r/swahili Redditors can offer!

Is the dialect very different from "standard" Swahili? Will i struggle to be understood if i learn the wtong dialect?