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Swahili and French for travel in Africa | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5817 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 1 of 5 29 December 2008 at 11:17pm | IP Logged |
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Hello all,
I'm new here, but I've been lurking around reading for a few weeks now. I'm an American high school student, and I'll be graduating in June. I'm strongly considering taking a year off before college, sort of like a European gap year. I plan to spend a lot of that time traveling in Africa with a friend. Specifically, we'd like to spend a few months in Senegal, Mali, and Niger (political climate permitting), and then fly out of Nigeria to Tanzania and spend a few months traveling there, in Kenya, and in Ethiopia. Obviously, for such a trip, the two most useful languages would be French for West Africa and Swahili for the East. I'm currently a French student, but I just switched this year from Spanish, and language education at my high school is, quite frankly, pathetic. I'm practically a complete beginner still. Over Christmas break, I've started using Pimsleur Swahili, and I'm on lesson four. It seems to be working very well for me, and I like the language a lot. I'm highly motivated and a good language student. I am switching to an independent language study for second semester, which should give me an hour or so a day at school to study. Supplementing that time outside of school on weekdays will be possible, though it will be somewhat difficult on occasion. Assuming my goal is to be at a level in both languages where I can have a good immersion experience in my (roughly) three months in each region while conversing on a basic level, what level of independent study should I plan on for the next nine months? What should my focus be on? Conversational skills are most important to me? Other than Pimsleur (I have French 1 & 2 and Swahili 1) what programs should I use? FSI? Many thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hollow Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States luelinks.netRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6545 days ago 179 posts - 186 votes Speaks: French*, English*, SpanishB2 Studies: Korean | Message 2 of 5 30 December 2008 at 3:45am | IP Logged |
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I wonder what political climate issues would prevent you from going to Niger
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| pongetti Newbie Canada Joined 5814 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 3 of 5 31 December 2008 at 12:10am | IP Logged |
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Actually, I haven't heard much news from Niger for a while, which is usually a good indication.
I too am learning other languages because of an interest in Africa. I am learning French for the DRC and eventually I plan to learn Lingala. I believe that Pimsleur has only 10 lessons for the Swahili course. You're not going to get very far with that at all. I think FSI and Rosetta Stone also have Swahili courses but I have not tried those myself. I started with Pimsleur French I, II and III. While it is a decent introduction, I did not find myself anywhere remotely close to being functional in the language, although I do think that it has really helped my pronunciation. I am doing Assimil now and find that it is much more practical, less explanation, you figure more out for yourself which for me leads to more understanding. I also recently got my hands on an older Linguaphone course from the 70s which is similar in style to Assimil and I believe that it will be a great complement. Don't just go on what I tell you though, search through this forum for opinions on all the various methods, there are hundreds of arguments for and against all the various programs. If I can offer an opinion though, from one beginner to another, I would concentrate on learning French and forget about Swahili in your situation. For one, you should be able to get by just fine with English in East Africa. I doubt that this is the case in Senegal, Mali and Niger. Second, it doesn't sound like you have a lot of time so it may be better to concentrate on one language and learn it more thoroughly. Third, every program under the sun is available for French, so you can learn the way that you learn best, which ties into my point about learning the one language more thoroughly. Of course, you may want to learn Swahili just because you want to, in which case, I say follow your heart. Edited by pongetti on 31 December 2008 at 12:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hollow Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States luelinks.netRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6545 days ago 179 posts - 186 votes Speaks: French*, English*, SpanishB2 Studies: Korean | Message 4 of 5 31 December 2008 at 4:38am | IP Logged |
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I was less wondering and more suggesting that unless you go to Casamance in Senegal there's hardly a part of west Africa so dangerous that you wouldn't/couldn't go there.
Niger especially just has a little once in a blue moon scuffle with the touaregs up north 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Woodpecker Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5817 days ago 351 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (Egyptian) Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 5 of 5 31 December 2008 at 12:17pm | IP Logged |
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Currently, Niger is effectively shut down north of Niamey. The government is only letting westerners travel up near the Tenere with registered guides and armed guards. Even then, it's thrown a lot of westerners in jail on the grounds that they are undercover journalists. You haven't heard anything because no reporters can get into the country to figure out what's going on. The USDOS website has some details. Niger isn't pretty right now.
Thank you all for the advice! Unfortunately (although I'm not complaining), my plans have been drastically changed. I am up for a gap year exchange scholarship to study Arabic in Jordan or Egypt, and there's a very good chance I'll be one of the winners. If I do, i would probably go for the first semester program and then fly down to Dar Es Salaam to do the East Africa portion of my trip. There won't be time or money for West Africa. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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