Learn Good SWAHILI: Step by Step: A Complete Grammar

A 800+ page textbook for anyone new to Swahili or wants to improve or brush up. Step by step explanation with examples and exercises, plus indexes, a 3,500+ bidirectional vocabulary* with mini-thesaurus**, and appendices. [*, ** - see examples below.] If you are going to East Africa, this is the text book you need to enhance your experience there, for being able to communicate with locals in their language is always most satisfying.

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*An example of a vocabulary entry:


lingana   v     match e.g. kusoma kwa mtoto kunalingana umri wake, the child’s reading matches her age


where "v" indicates verb. Note: All Swahili text in the book is italicized as seen above, to visually distinguish it from all the other English text.

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**The built-in mini-thesaurus takes two forms:


(1) Related Words e.g. the entry for "abadan" has Related Words, as follows: ["F" = foreign-origin; "adv" = adverb]


abadan   F   adv    always e.g. yeye abadan haridhi, he is never contented

Related Words:

baadaye, later/then

daima, always

halafu, then

huenda, sometimes

kabla ya, before

kamwe, never

kila mara, always

kisha, afterwards

milele, forever

punde, shortly

sasa, now

zamani, earlier



(2) Words grouped under the following categories: body, building structure, fauna, food, person, produce, terrain, tool, utensil, vegetation (including flora) and for adjectives, colours e.g. some of the entries under body are, in alphabetical order in English: [entries in brackets such as "(m,mi)" = (singular, plural prefixes); "n" = noun; "V", "xFF", "xFV", "U", "T" are noun groups as explained in Chapter 3: Nouns]



mkono(m,mi)   n body: arm              V

kwapa(-,ma)   n body: armpit           xFF

mgongo(m,mi)  n body: back             V

ndevu(-)      n body: beard            xFV

mshipa(m,mi)  n body: blood vessel     V

mfupa(m,mi)   n body: bone             V

ubongo(u,m)   n body: brain            U

...

tumbo(-,ma)   n body: stomach          xFF

mkia(m,mi)    n body: tail (animal)    V

paja(-,ma)    n body: thigh            xFF

koo(-,ma)     n body: throat           xFF

ulimi(ul,nd)  n body: tongue           U

mkonga(m,mi)  n body: trunk (elephant) V

kiuno(ki,vi)  n body: waist            T



(A total of over 70 entries under body)