Hi everybody.

I am a college student from Tanzania. I have to do a project this semester and I was wondering if I could do something about the Swahili language.

I was thinking about creating a digital Swahili proficiency test, seeing that learning resources are abundant, I figured there wouldn't be a strong need for them.

I want to get ideas from you guys(non-native speakers), what do you think would really improve the Swahili learning experience?

Is alliteration popular in Swahili? Asks a mjinga mzee muzungu

I'm not gonna get into too much detail, but I'm trying to make a war game and one of the factions is going to be African based, based on a group from a show that is based off African culture. I simply want a name for this faction for now, and I've tried using translators and dictionaries as well as trying to ask ChatGPT for information but I've come away dissatisfied with my result and worried that it might give off appropriation vibes. I want a name that respects the many cultures of Africa, or at least as many as possible. Of course, this faction is more of a unified confederation of tribes rather than a single nation, so I want the name to be broad, reflecting the land they are protecting rather than the people because each culture in Africa has its own identity and the name shouldn't be so narrow.

The name I originally tried before realizing I was out of my league was Ardhi Nyimbo of some portmanteau of it. It's supposed to mean Land of Songs, cause that was the first idea to pop in my head. I don't expect to fully capture the culture and provide great representation as I am clearly not of the cultures or an expert, I just want it to hold up under scrutiny and avoid offensive ideas.

(I feel like I should add that this is not historical based. And cringey and weird as it sounds, I'm making a wargame based on My Little Pony which has Zebras that use African culture as a basis.)

I'm debating whether to learn swahili and the main thing is resources, surprisingly there is a complete course on language transfer that I plan to complete alongside a little duolingo to get the basics. After that though I usually switch to comprehensible input so I'm wondering is there enough resources out there to learn and what are they? Thank you in advance 👍

does in swahili ‚Ninakuwa‘ mean ‚I am being‘ or ‚I become‘? how do you say in swahili ‚I became a doctor‘ and differentiate it from ‚I was a doctor‘? Natumaini unaendelea vizuri ukiweza kunisaidia

Found on thrifted t-shirt with photo of a dark skinned man in a suit with a Charlie Chaplin type mustache. Shirt is super detailed, handmade, and features his photo throughout. Very curious thank you to anyone who helps!

My girlfriend is from Kenya, and I wanted to learn Sheng to surprise her. I know english and a bit of swahili, but I have no clue where can I learn sheng? All the courses and methods I found online only teach pure swahili.

I just want to double check with people who knows. Is nakutakia kila la kheri correct?. I need to end a letter with something like the title. Not necessarily the exact words if there is another expression that is used more often. It also suggested sewa sewa but a post on Reddit contradicted that.

Hi my husband is from Kenya and we are expecting another baby.

Our first son is named Zawadi.

I would like our daughter to have a name meaning precious or treasure. Do you have any suggestions please?

I tried to do a search and I found Hazina means treasure, is this correct? I like the name because it sounds like a mix between byname and my husbands. If it means treasure/precious, it would be perfect!

Please help

Thank you

Could anyone help me understand how would you accurately translate "The Sleepless" to Swahili?

Hi guys!

I've just started making a track and came across a vocal sample that I feel fit pretty good. I think it is sung in Swahili, and I would very much appreciate it if anyone could help me transcribe, and give me a rough translation of the lyrics. The plan is to combine it with some English lyrics, and I thought it would make sense if they have the same overall theme.

You can hear the lyrics here

Song is in _very_ early stage, so please don't judge the track too hard... yet ;-)

Hello everyone,

I am working on a research project in which I have to develop a machine translation model capable of accurately translating scientific English text to Swahili.

This will help many students study science without a language barrier. I am seeking help from you all now. I am searching for scientific texts like physics, biology textbooks, or any other scientific text written in Swahili. I need this to train the model. I have tried a lot to find this text, but I have not been able to find it.

If you have any resources, please share. Thanks!

Like im a native speaker but i dont get it

Hi! I recruit educators for a school district in SW Michigan. We are looking for a strong Swahili Bilingual Tutor who can work with teachers in the high school to provide bilingual instructional support to those students with the highest needs. Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide in helping me find such a candidate!

This is off topic, since it's about Swahili culture rather than Kiswahili. But this group seems as close as I'm going to get to one where it would be on topic, so I hope y'all don't mind.

I'm looking for some kind of historic reenactment of Swahili culture: What would be a RennFaire in Europe or the US, but for 16th-ish century Swahili culture, rather than European culture. If anyone knows of anything like that, maybe in modern Tanzania, Kenya, etc., I'd love to know about it.

Hello, I wanted to ask about these lyrics I deciphered from a game called Genshin Impact. There are no official lyrics released yet, so here I am, trying to decipher the lyrics because I'm really interested in Swahili. Here are the lyrics.

Mwoza wa moto, zi wachezi wake angani Kama vile moto usiozimika Mparene anchini, nenda mbele kwa ujabari Itapoku atapata, majivu ya moto ni tena

(Instrumental)

Wakiaga wenyewe, moto daima utawata Moto daima utawata, na muso wa tulivyowepo Nami naweza haponi, na moto utakuambia Na moto utakuambia, na moto utakuambia Pia! Pia!

Feel free to share your opinion if something's not right or if you have any suggestions for changes. Thank you!

I was wondering if anyone knew where to find very basic, beginner level CI for Swahili. I've found some stuff online but it also seems to be late beginner/intermediate level. I'm looking for very basic stuff, similar to the Dreaming Spanish superbeginner content. Thanks in advance for any help!

I would love to know what the lyrics to this song mean. Can anyone help me translate it to english? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7lYfqQtA1U

Hello everyone. I'm going to be volunteering for 4 weeks in Tanzania in February and I want to learn some Swahili before I go. Yesterday, I started learning Swahili and I want to put updates here semi-regularly to keep me honest and hopefully, it'll be useful for other people too. I don't know if this kind of post is allowed so sorry if it isn't!

My learning plan:

I've had a look at the recommendations on this subreddit and other places and this is how I'm going to be learning.

• Language Transfer Swahili Course - I will try to do 2/3 lessons a day.
• Pimsleur Swahili Course - currently I've got the 7-day free trial but if I like it then I'll get it for a month and try to do a lesson a day.
• Anki - starting off with the Swahili core 100 deck, aiming to do 15 new words + reviews a day.
• Duolingo - Just as a supplement. Will do this whenever I'm bored/feel like it. Not expecting much from this - just a good way to gamify my learning.

Future plans:

As I've just begun my journey, I'm going to stick with these resources for now. In the future, I might use the Simplified Swahili textbook (I've found a PDF for it online) and an Anki vocab deck based on it. I also want to very quickly start reading/listening to the stories available on the Storybooks Canada website.

How I'm finding it so far:

I only started yesterday but I'm really enjoying the journey! I've been listening to Baba Yetu on repeat lmao. The Language Transfer course is awesome and such a cool way of learning. I've got two weeks off of uni right now so I've got lots of free time and I want to get lots done in this time period. I can speak some Urdu as my family is from Pakistan and Urdu has very similar loanword roots to Swahili (Arabic, Persian, and Hindi). I'm finding this really useful and putting useful cognates into a table.

The only thing I've not been able to find yet is some good superbeginner level comprehensible input. Does anyone know where I could find that? Would be a huge help. Also wondered what methods worked for everyone else here at the very beginning of their journey? Any tips/tricks/warnings?

Hi is this methali correct? Its translation is given as: "The rooster, always beneficial, is eaten."

I don't know the word "mtenda".

Asanteni

Hi! Im trying to learn Swahili via immersion. However, the only material I could find was Ubongo Kids (which is useful but not ideal).

I would like to watch normal series that East African children may enjoy: Sponge Bob, Dragon Ball, Naruto, etc.

Cartoons are ideal for lang learning but live action is fine too.

Is there any site with content for me :)?

Thank you

Hello, I recently sent some forestry products that my company produces to a distributor in Africa (Kenya) to test out. They sent us back some short videos. Could someone please help me out by roughly translating what is being said? Thanks in advance.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZtdRQxYvTvU

How can i make present continuous tense in kiswahili?

I read a book.(present tense)→Ninasoma kitabu.

I am reading a book(present continuous)→？？

I am a college student studying to become a teacher. I am doing an assignment where I have to study the social relationships between students. One student in my observation class only speaks Swahili. I only have two questions:

1. What is your name? Jina lako ni nani?
2. Choose two classmates you would like to work with on a group project. Chagua wanafunzi wenza wawili ambao ungependa kufanya kazi nao kwa mradi wa kikundi.

I just want to double check my Google translate and make sure it’s readable. Not sure if she even reads Swahili but it’s better than giving her an English survey.

Thanks for any help!!