Sounds, Tones and Special Letters
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Lesson overview
How Swahili is written and pronounced: tones and special letters.
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Pacing
Read the stem stem-last (question clause first), eliminate two distractors, then verify constraints.
How Languages marks this
Focus on how Languages scenarios frame constraints, qualifiers ("FIRST", "BEST", "MOST likely"), and boundary cases.
Watch out for
Technically true statements that do not solve the specific constraint in the scenario.
Lesson content
Overview
Swahili (Kiswahili) is spoken in East Africa — Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and beyond — and as a working language of the African Union. Before learning phrases, get to know how it sounds and how it is written.
How It's Written
Swahili is written in the Latin alphabet with no tone marks — it is not a tonal language. Vowels are pure (a, e, i, o, u, as in Spanish), spelling is very regular, and stress almost always falls on the second-to-last syllable.
Examples
Look closely at the marks in these greetings — you'll learn them in the next lesson: • Jambo — Hello • Habari? — How are you? • Habari za asubuhi? — Good morning • Habari za mchana? — Good afternoon
Learning Tip
Always learn a word together with its marks. Leaving them out can change the pronunciation — and in a tonal language, sometimes the meaning.
Practise
Say every word aloud, then take the 10-question check below (60% to pass) to unlock the next lesson. Stuck? Ask the AI tutor about this lesson. This course is in beta: it sticks to common, everyday language, but it has not yet been reviewed by native speakers, and many phrases have regional variants. If something looks wrong, please tell us.
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