Photo by Andreas Dress on Unsplash

This week I focused more on proper pronunciation in Swahili.  I was finding that when I try to learn a word by reading it,  my pronunciation was not sounding the same as when I listened to the word back using the app.  A lot of Swahili is spoken as it reads, but there are some differences in the way vowels are pronounced, as well as different letter combinations.  I have been saying the vowels as they sound in English, but I found this explanation of their proper sounds in Swahili from https://www.swahilipod101.com/swahili-pronunciation/ which has been helpful:

  • -A: The Swahili letter –a is pronounced like the [a] in “car.” The word for “earth” is ardhi, and the word for “spoil” is aribu.
  • -E: The Swahili letter –e is pronounced like the [e] in “eight.” The word for “carry” is beba, and the word for “say” is sema.
  • -I: The Swahili letter –i is pronounced like the [i] in “ski.” The word for “bless” is bariki, and the word for “life” is maisha.
  • -O: The Swahili letter –o is pronounced similar to the [oo] in the bird “owl.” The word for “fear” is ogopa and the word for “schedule” is orodha.
  • -U: The Swahili letter –u is pronounced similar to the [uu] in the pronoun “you.” The word for “sickness” is ugonjwa, and the word for “inheritance” is uridhi.

I also learned that while Swahili uses the same alphabet as we do in English, it does not have the letter x or q, and the letter c is always paired with another letter and is never just on its own.

As I have been practicing the basic words and phrases from my first post, there were a few sounds that I wasn’t quite getting right.  I found this link for a website that explains the pronunciation of all the letters of the alphabet, and also has a video of a man saying many of the greetings I have been working on.  Being able to watch him say the words has been very helpful, as I can see how his mouth is forming the sounds rather than just trying to figure it out by ear.

This next week I plan to look a little bit more into the pronunciation as well as how you know which syllable to enunciate more.  Kwaheri for now!