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Swahili?! | ||
Tags: African languages | Swahili | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| la_vida_l0ca Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5801 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: French, Spanish Studies: Esperanto | Message 1 of 19 07 January 2009 at 5:08pm | IP Logged |
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Hi, I am 16 and I love learning languages and after a while of deciding which language
to study next... I think Swahili would be fun (yes, slightly random) because when I am older I want to visit Tanzania a bit and canoe the Zambezi etc.. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience of this language and could recommend any books/on-line courses and if it is at all similar to any other languages - I speak native English; French and Spanish to As Level standard (so far) and brushes of Greek and Mandarin (only a little though). Any information or advice would be really appreciated :D Thank you :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Giordano Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7175 days ago 213 posts - 218 votes  3 sounds Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Cantonese, Greek | Message 2 of 19 07 January 2009 at 8:47pm | IP Logged |
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Swahili, that's really cool. I'd like to have a reason to learn Swahili one day, it's such an interesting language. It might be difficult to find people to talk to, but travelling to places where it is spoken will help a lot.
There is all kinds of information all over this site... I can give you this link: http://www.fsi-language-courses.com/Swahili.aspx I think you need to be pretty serious about it to learn a language like Swahili, but if you are, FSI courses are supposed to be very good. I have never used one but I plan to start one soon. EDIT: Oh, I forgot: Good luck! Edited by Giordano on 07 January 2009 at 8:47pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6471 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 3 of 19 08 January 2009 at 4:16am | IP Logged |
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I am studying Swahili on and off with the Assimil course, which is really great. Unfortunately I'm not sure it's available in English.
Also, there's a great multimedia course available online for free! http://www.africa.uga.edu/Kiswahili/doe/index.html 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| kottoler.ello Tetraglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6004 days ago 128 posts - 192 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Mandarin, French Studies: Japanese, German | Message 4 of 19 13 January 2009 at 11:39pm | IP Logged |
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I would recommend the FSI course, at least for starters, I´ve heard nothing but good about FSI, ever. And, I applaud you for taking on an interesting but mostly neglected language, and I hope your motivation never falters, because it won´t easy! Swahili is a language I´ve been long interested in myself, I hope one day I get the opportunity to study it as yourself. Best of luck! You may find these sites helpful-
http://kamusiproject.org/ http://www.langlink.net/langlink/detail.aspx?id=swahili 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| formiko Nonaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6212 days ago 848 posts - 855 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Esperanto, Indonesian, Yoruba, Cherokee, Russian, German, French Studies: Mandarin, Ancient Greek | Message 5 of 19 14 January 2009 at 9:05pm | IP Logged |
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Actually, Swahili is rather easy, since it is a "constructed" language. It was formulated to be a lingua franca for East Africa. The difficulty in Swahili is it's "class" system, which is Swahili's version of gender.
Example: Kitabu kimoja kinatosha. 1 book is enough Vitabu viwili vinatosha. 2 books are enough. or mtu mzungu white man mitu mizungu white men There are 10 such genders in Swahili. In my opinion, the west African language from the Atlantic-Congo family are SOO much easier. Like Yoruba, Twi, Wolof, Mandinka, etc. sAME EXAMPLE above in yoruba: Ikan iwe to : 1 book is enough eji iwe to : 2 books are enough or Wolof: ben teere doiy ñar teere doiy Very easy and regular. Edited by formiko on 14 January 2009 at 9:10pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| joaopferrao Pentaglot Newbie Portugal Joined 5805 days ago 25 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Icelandic | Message 6 of 19 15 January 2009 at 9:11am | IP Logged |
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There are 15 classes of nouns and they are all useful for lots of things (they are not restricted to one thing).
If you want to check what Swahili is like, try to look at the Sketch of Swahili in the book An Introduction to the Languages of the World, by Anatole V. Lyovin. Once I thought of learning it, but after studying the sketch and doing the exercises I gave up. The book also has sketches of other languages, which is really good to see if you want to learn one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Catherine Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6119 days ago 18 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: French, Turkish, Polish, Swahili | Message 7 of 19 16 January 2009 at 1:55pm | IP Logged |
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Swahili isn't a constructed language. It developed naturally in coastal areas of East Africa and later became a lingua franca.
I would say Swahili is overall an easy language to learn. Once you get past the fact that there are so many cases, it's actually pretty straightforward in my experience. Swahili is a beautiful language, and I'm sure you'll enjoy learning it la_vida_l0ca! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5812 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 8 of 19 16 January 2009 at 7:52pm | IP Logged |
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Swahili is fun, and hasn't been that difficult so far for me. I'm using Pimsleur (just to get started, there are only 10 lessons) and FSI, along with some online stuff.
I have to disagree with the guy above who said Twi was easier than Swahili. I have an exchange student from Ghana living with me, and Twi is nuts! It has three different pitch levels and a ton of sounds we don't have in English. I can't even correctly pronounce the name of the language. When Sadat says Twi, it sounds like "chi" to me, but every time I say that he just laughs at me. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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