Swahili I

Swahili is the most popular language of Sub-Saharan Africa, spoken in most countries of Eastern and Central Africa by more than 50 million people.  Swahili is characterized by the typical complex Bantu structure.  However, it is particularly easy to pronounce and fast learned.

The Elementary Swahili series is designed to help students acquire communicative competence in Swahili and a basic understanding of its structures. The course presents basic phonological, grammatical, and syntactic patterns of Kiswahili. Through a variety of exercises, students develop communicative functionality in listening, speaking, reading and writing.  Emphasis is put on dialogues and role-plays, individual and group presentations, and the use of audiovisual and web-based resources.  Swahili culture and African culture in general are an important component of the course.

At the end of the elementary course series, the students are able to communicate efficiently in everyday life situations, write and present short descriptive notes about elementary pieces of verbal creation (documentaries and video series in Swahili)