Swahili Lessons

The YouTube Videos posted below are by a young man named Moses from Ohio. He is a Foreign Language Consultant and has almost 200 language videos out on YouTube.

Some of the other languages he teaches are Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Tibetan and Zulu.



For some of you PC/Windows users you may have just a white block showing - try clicking once in the middle of that box to launch the video.





This second lesson has a first and second part - he takes a long time in the first part writing everything on the board in the first part so I have only posted the second part where he goes through the translation and explanation.

Swahili Trivia

FYI - Swahili people don’t like “hanging consonants” – consonants that are not followed by vowels.

Therefore, if your name is “John” with a hanging “n”, they’ll call you “Joni” – with a vowel “i” added at the end.

If you’re “Bruce” – with a hanging “s” sound – they’ll call you “Brusi”.

If you’re “Rose” – with a hanging “z” sound – they’ll call you “Rozi”.

And of course the Arabic name “Salim” becomes “Salimu”.

You have to watchout if your name is “Cook” or “Cooke” because they will call you “Kuku” which actually means “chicken” in Swahili!

Swahili Song - Asante Sana Yesu

Molly, Beatrice & Edward in Nairobi are singing the song Pastor Ben taught us at our last Swahili lesson.

Swahili Class with Pastor Ben

Here is Pastor Ben during our Swahili class back on April 2nd. Ben is a Swahili man who now lives here in Kansas City with his family. What a joyful smile!

Ben is a pastor of a local church and has donated his time to our group on several occasions to tutor us in the Swahili language.

Jerod was very impressive in his conversation with Pastor Ben - and I think I have heard Jerod talk more in Swahili than English, as he is usually so quiet.

The class truly enjoyed the lesson. Ben has offered to join us one more time before we depart for Tanzania - and recommended he join us for a group dinner, a good setting to practice our Swahili in action.

More info to come later about the dinner/Swahili lession.

Animal Names in Swahili

Simba is the Swahili word for lion, so it is appropriate for the main character of the Lion King to be named Simba.

We have a Swahili lesson with Pastor Ben Tonight at 6:30pm.




TWIGA means giraffe in Swahili, the animal that sticks its neck out.

The Twiga Foundation in East Africa has the mission to inspire and support people, especially the young, to build a better future for themselves and their communities.

TWIGA does this in an informal yet professional way by supporting small-scale projects in East Africa by means of (helping with) setting up and executing plans and raising funds, largely in the areas of:

Street children and orphans
Education (formal and informal)
Healthcare
Activities to generate income
Long-term eco-tourism

TWIGA actually also stands for "The Way to Income-Generating Activities" - The foundation believes it is important that a project gets off the ground but also to keep independent funds coming in.