Learn Swahili Quickly and Easily - The theory made simple

by Laurence Wood

Introduction – how the course works The first section of this book does not use any grammatical terms whatsoever, but still gets the ideas across. It is a rebellion against all those ‘teach yourself’ language books that seem to think that grammar is the very first thing to take in. That’s not how you learnt your native language – you learnt it by making sense of it and by gentle immersion. That’s what this book will do. Once you get past the unfamiliarity, the rules of Swahili are much easier than English, with far fewer irregularities. For instance, if you know the way to say something that is happening now, you will also be able very easily to work out how to say the same thing in the past or the future. Furthermore, Swahili words are often short and simple, and the connecting words are short and multi-purpose. Swahili speakers realise that the person you are speaking to has mainly cottoned on to what you are saying whilst you are still saying it, so you do not need elaborate grammar and long words to say something simple! Book One – the theory and the grammar for those who hate grammar This book is in two sections. The first section is designed for painless understanding of the way in which the language works. It uses only a very limited vocabulary, and absolutely no technical terms, but nevertheless explains, in gentle steps, the way the language functions. By doing this with only a limited number of new words to learn, you will only have to concentrate on learning the new concepts, which are really not that difficult. At the end of the section, and at the end of each short chapter within it, are straightforward tests to drive home the understanding. Thereafter, once the concepts are clear, the second section summarises the first, and uses simple sentences to illustrate all the key points. In making a limited number of carefully crafted sentences, the second section translates the learning of the first section everyday language into the grammatical concepts. The idea is that once you can translate these sentences, and understand why, you will have a very good working grasp of the way the language works. Once again, at the end of the section, and at the end of each short chapter within it, are straightforward tests to drive home the understanding. If you are very grammar-minded, by all means move to the second section quickly. In early 2014, all of the exercises will be available in audio format, to be downloaded onto your smart phone. You can then listen to them at the same time as following them on your kindle, notepad or electronic reader. Listening is a very powerful tool for driving home learning – especially repetitive listening combined with making sense of what you are hearing. (Which is the way that children learn a language). Book Two – driving the language deep inside The second book, (available from early 2014), is the one that painlessly drives all this theory home. It introduces a broader and deeper vocabulary, in the form of a story. The story is translated in ‘parallel text’ in the book. This is accompanied by a vocal recording of both the English and the Swahili, which can be listened to either alternately, paragraph by paragraph, or as a whole in Swahili. Listen either to the story or the exercises for just 20 minutes every day – in a queue in a shop, walking along the street, driving to work – and back this up by checking understanding and making sense of it where there is any confusion. Within six months, you will be able to have fairly detailed and fluent conversations.

258 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 30, 2017