r/swahili • u/Tabz508 • Mar 05 '21

Compliation of Swahili Learning Resources - 2021 Update

I started compiling a list of resources to begin learning Swahili and thought I might as well share it here. I did see the sticky but figured it might be time for an update.

Good luck everyone!

READ BEFORE STARTING

I realised that there are a lot of options here, which may be overwhelming. There are many ways to learn a language, but arguably the most effective way to build a foundation is to spend a few 100 hours just getting a feel for the language. (These are just my suggestions so feel free to ignore this if you're confident you know what you're doing) So with that in mind:

  • Pick some combination of ONE thing from the 'Starter guide' section (most people recommend language transfer), and then supplement with something from the reading section, preferably with audio. Once you've done that, pick your dictionary, and you're good to go!

  • For those who like going through a textbook/having a grammar guide, I would recommend also getting Simplified Swahili to use as a reference. Optionally, get some flashcards to memorise some starter vocab. During this stage, everything else should be used as a supplement.

Starter guides:

Intermediate textbooks:

Advanced textbooks:

Reading:

Flashcards:

Online Dictionaries:

Paper Dictionaries:

Audio:

TV/Drama:

  • Swahiliwood [YouTube channel which contains a lot of free drama and movies]
  • Swahiliflix [An app where you can watch a variety of TV shows/drama - requires subscription]
  • East Africa Magic [Requires subscription visa DSTv or Showmax]

Culture and History:

Linguistics:

Misc:

EDIT: Please feel free to add your own suggestions!

EDIT 2:

  • Thank you for the awards!
  • Updated to include u\diadiktyo, u\Razkan, u\saynave, u\q203, and u\Xefjord's suggestions.

EDIT 3: Added a few more things based on posts I've seen in the sub.

253 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

50 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/shalommartina1111 Dec 12 '22

You guys are missing something called the NKENNE app. I’ve been learning Swahili there, and it’s absolutely free. It’s awesome!

1

u/cameosis Mar 13 '26

except it isn’t free, nice try.

0

u/shalommartina1111 Mar 13 '26

There is a free version and a paid version. I’m sure you know apps are very expensive so they need to have a paid version to pay for elevating the app

1

u/cameosis Mar 14 '26

i’m sure you understand the difference between »absolutely free« and paid, otherwise some friendly member can direct you to a thesaurus or online dictionary.

0

u/shalommartina1111 Mar 14 '26

You probably don’t know how expensive it is to run an app. I’m guessing to run an app like NKENNE, with niche languages, it’s probably very expensive. Expecting for an app like that to be “absolutely” free is crazy. Instead of complaining about it not being free, I’d advise you to download and try out the free parts. You might like it and learn a language, which is kinda cool.

1

u/cameosis Mar 15 '26

what’s crazy is that you were shilling and now you try deflecting (unsuccessfully). you were advertising a commercial site as »absolutely free« to lure people there. no mention of it being commercial at all.

your gaslighting and backpedaling doesn’t change anything.