Table Of ContentColloquial
Swahili
COLLOQUIAL SWAHILI is easy to use and completely up to date!
Specially written by experienced teachers for self-study or class
use, the course offers you a step-by-step approach to written and
spoken Swahili. No prior knowledge of the language is required.
What makes this new edition of COLLOQUIAL SWAHILI your best
choice in personal language learning?
• Interactive – lots of exercises for regular practice
• Clear – concise grammar notes
• Practical – useful vocabulary and pronunciation guide
• Complete – including answer key and reference section
Whether you’re a business traveller, or about to take up a daring
challenge in adventure tourism; you may be studying to teach or even
looking forward to a holiday – if you’d like to get up and running with
Swahili, this rewarding course will take you from complete beginner
to confidently putting your language skills to use in a wide range of
everyday situations.
Accompanying audio material is available to purchase separately
on two CDs or in MP3 format, or comes included in the great value
COLLOQUIAL SWAHILI paperback and CDs complete course.
Recorded by native speakers, the audio material complements the
book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.
The Colloquial SerieS
Series adviser: Gary King
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Colloquial 2s series: The Next Step in Language Learning
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All these Colloquials are available in book & CD packs, or separately. You can order
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Colloquial
Swahili
The Complete Course
for Beginners
Donovan McGrath and Lutz Marten
Second edition published 2012
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 Donovan McGrath and Lutz Marten
The right of Donovan McGrath and Lutz Marten to be identified as authors of this
work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2003
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
McGrath, Donovan, 1957–
Colloquial Swahili : the complete course for beginners / Donovan McGrath and
Lutz Marten. — [2nd ed.]
p.cm. — (The colloquial series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Swahili language—Textbooks for foreign speakers—English. 2. Swahili
language—Spoken Swahili. 3. Swahili language—Sound recordings for foreign
speakers. 4. Swahili language—Self-instruction. I. Marten, Lutz. II. Title. III. Series:
Colloquial series.
PL8702.M34 2011
496′.39283421—dc22
2010051275
ISBN: 978-0-415-57544-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-58070-0 (audio CDs)
ISBN: 978-0-415-58068-7 (pack)
ISBN: 978-0-415-58069-4 (MP3s)
ISBN: 978-0-203-85092-3 (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-74104-8 (eBook Pack)
Typeset in Avant Garde and Helvetica
by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong
This book is dedicated to the memory of
my mother, Joyce (1932–2010)
D. McG.
and Margaret Kumbuka (1952–2009)
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
introduction 1
1 Karibu! 9
Welcome!
2 unatoka wapi? 27
Where do you come from?
3 Familia 47
The family
4 Kusafiri 65
Travelling
5 Safarini 85
On the move
6 Shambani 104
In the countryside
7 ugonjwa na matibabu 123
Sickness and medical treatment
8 Kutembelea 142
Visiting
9 Kufanya utafiti wa jamii 161
Doing social research
10 Sherehe ya arusi 175
A wedding celebration
11 Taabu za nyumbani 192
Trouble at home
12 hadithi na magazeti 207
Stories and newspapers
13 Mawasiliano 223
Communications
viii Contents
14 Muziki wa aina mbalimbali 238
Various kinds of music
Summary table of tenses 248
Summary table of noun classes and agreement 249
Key to exercises 250
Swahili–english glossary 284
english–Swahili glossary 306
language structure index 329
Please email [email protected] with proof of purchase to
obtain access to the supplementary content for this eBook. An access code and
instructions will be provided.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Ben Rawlence for helping with the audioscripts,
Lauren Jeffs for helping with the manuscript and audioscripts, as well
as to Fionnuala O’Brien for detailed comments on this second edition.
We would like to extend our gratitude for the photo contributions
in this current edition from Jonathan Donovan, Craig Ferla, Hannah
Gibson, Mary Ann Mhina, Teresa Poeta and Ben Rawlence.
We would also like to express our thanks to our teachers Sauda
Barwani, Ridder Samsom, Thilo Schadeberg, Farouk Topan, friends,
teachers and students at the School of Oriental and African Studies
in London, especially Chege Githiora and Wamb]i Wa-Ngatho,
Muhammed Said Ali and his colleagues from the Institute of Kiswahili
and Foreign Languages of the State University of Zanzibar, lecturers
and students from the Department of Kiswahili at the University of
Dar es Salaam, in particular Kimizi Moshi and Chambala Mtumwa;
Iyiola Solanke and students from the Swahili workshop at Hackney
Community College in London, especially David Payne for his com-
ments on early units in the first edition, and Rukiza Okera for his
musical contribution; art teacher Ivor Jeffers for offering help with the
illustrations; African Studies lecturer Femi Biko for his teaching and
inspiration; Yvonne Munnichs for the gift of a much-needed laptop
computer; three anonymous reviewers for detailed comments and
suggestions; and the editorial and production staff at Routledge’s
Language Learning section, as well as all those who have helped to
make this book possible. Finally, we would like to thank our families
and beloved partners, Lauren and Nancy, for their love and support
throughout this project.
Donovan McGrath and Lutz Marten
Introduction
How to use this book
Welcome to Colloquial Swahili! We hope you will enjoy working with
this book and its audio material, and that they will help you to feel
comfortable and happy to use Swahili – Kiswahili in Swahili – in a
number of everyday situations.
In order to make the most of the information offered in this course,
you should know how it is structured. The course consists of fourteen
units, and each unit is based on three dialogues. The dialogues are
the heart of each unit. They describe situations and aspects of
East African life from different points of view, and introduce the vocabu
lary and structures needed to talk about them. At the beginning
of each unit, the main points of the unit are summarized. On the
audio materi al you will find the dialogues spoken by Swahili speakers,
and the best way to understand natural Swahili and to produce a
reasonable copy of it yourself is to listen to the dialogues a number
of times. For the first half of the course, up to Unit 7, the dialogues
are translated into English. The English translations of the dialogues
are meant to help you to understand both the content of the Swahili
dialogue and its structure. They may sound strange to the English
speaker at times, as we have tried to reveal as much as possible
of the structure of the original, and because some Swahili expres
sions just don’t translate very well into English. After Unit 7, you
will no longer need translations, as you will easily understand the
Swahili dialogues with the help of the vocabulary listed after each
dialogue.
Built around the dialogues, each unit offers further, more detailed
information, grouped under the following headings:
