What are the difficult aspects of the Kiswahili?
Swahili can be difficult for a few reasons. Some have to do with the language itself, and others have to do with factors outside the language. Learning any language for the first time presents a hurdle; you have to overcome the fear of embarrassment, new sounds, and different grammatical structures. Swahili is not unique in these challenges.
Greetings
Ironically, the easiest part of most languages, greetings, can present some difficulty for beginners. There are so many ways to say “hello, how are you?” that it can be overwhelming in the beginning. As a learner, you might hear:
- Mambo?
- Jambo
- Hujambo?
- Habari za…(kazi, leo, safari)
- Uko aje?
- U hali gani?
- Shikamoo
- Niaje?
- As-Salamu Alaykum
- Salama?
Each greeting has its own response. Some responses can be used for multiple greetings, but generally these greetings follow a formula. It isn’t uncommon in East Africa for people to exchange a series of these greetings in rapid succession. Some people might even mistake you for a local and engage in this rapid-fire exchange of greetings with you! So, it’s a good idea to respond appropriately.
Grammar
This is a tough point in many languages, but Swahili presents its own unique difficulties. For some European languages, there is something called “grammatical gender.” Nouns in French for example, are divided into masculine and feminine. In Swahili, there are no masculine or feminine nouns. What you have instead are about 10 grammatical genders called “noun classes” that you need to juggle in order to make different parts of speech agree with each other.
Besides these noun classes, Swahili as a different way of keeping time. For example, the days of the week start from Saturday, rather than Monday or Sunday like you may be used to. So, you count from Saturday first, to Friday. Time is also communicated differently. 2pm or 14:00 for a westerner, would effectively be “the 8th daytime hour” in Swahili time. This really takes a shift in your thinking in the beginning. Combine this with the wide variety of demonstratives, ways to create relative clauses, and the subjunctive “tense”, the complexity starts to add up very quickly.
What other aspects make learning Swahili difficult?
Besides the language related difficulties, some unique aspects make Swahili a bit more challenging to learn. The main aspect being Swahili’s general lack of support online and offline. It’s tough to find good language learning resources for the language. There are some great materials out there. Yet they pale in comparison to the offerings for French, German, and other more widely studied languages. Learners could find difficulty getting their feet wet when looking for beginner and intermediate learning content.
Lasty, opportunities to speak Swahili in day-to-day life can be few and far between. Thankfully the internet allows us to connect to Swahili speakers and teachers online, so this challenge can be mitigated to some degree. However, unless you live in a Swahili speaking area or travel exclusively to East Africa, using the language verbally and keeping it fresh can prove to be a challenge offline.
However, websites like this are looking to change that. We plan to create Swahili language learning resources to make your journey a lot smoother and boost your immersion. We’re excited for the projects we have in works down the line, so hopefully you’ll stick around to see more.
Don’t let that scare you off
Despite some of the challenges, Swahili can be an extremely rewarding language to learn. It’s easy to jump into and get the ball rolling, so don’t let the hurdles in the beginning discourage you. Just take this one word at a time, one phrase at a time. Usijali!
