Swahili Verbs

Welcome to the 10th lesson about verbs in Swahili. We will first learn about the present tense, followed by the past tense, and future tense. We will also analyze some grammar rules, and finally practice how to ask for direction in Swahili.

Verbs are used to express an action (I swim) or a state of being (I am). The present tense in Swahili conveys a situation or event in the present time. Here are some examples:

Present Tense	Swahili
I speak English	mimi huongea kiingereza
you speak French	unaongea kifaransa
he speaks German	anaongea kijerumani
she speaks Italian	anaongea kiitalia
we speak Arabic	sisi huongea kiarabu
they speak Chinese	wao huongea kichina

Swahili Vocabulary

Welcome to the 9th lesson about the Swahili vocabulary. We're dedicating this page to the most important and most used words in Swahili. For example: clothes, languages, countries, travel, survival words, class, and house components.

shirt   shati	sweater   sweta	jacket   koti	coat   koti
socks   soksi	shoes   viatu	trousers   suruali	pajamas   pajamas
belt   ukanda	underwear   chupi	hat   kofia	skirt   skati

Swahili Grammar

Welcome to the 8th lesson about Swahili grammar. We will first learn about prepositions, negation, questions,adverbs, and pronouns including: personal, object and possessive pronouns.

We will start with prepositions. In general, they are used to link words to other words. For example: I speak Swahili andEnglish the preposition is [and] because it connects both words Swahili and English. The following is a list of the most used prepositions in Swahili.

Prepositions	Swahili
and	na
above	juu
under	chini ya
before	kabla
after	baada ya
in front of	mbele ya
behind	nyuma
far from	mbali na
near	karibu
in	katika
inside	ndani
outside	nje
with	na
without	bila
about	kuhusu
between	kati ya
but	lakini
for	kwa
from	kutoka
to	kwa