All our course material comes directly from NTIS, notice their price is $220, our price is $19.95!

 

 

 

 

Here is a picture of our Swahili Basic Course Cassettes that we mastered using the Tascam Pro Audio equipment below. Double click the images to see a detailed image.

 

Speaking Swahili Language

Language Experts agree, our courses are the most complete and thorough self-instructional language course available. Repetition, vocabulary, sentence structure are the building blocks our course utilizes to teach a language. Lots of repetition drills. Dialog drills. Pronunciation drills. Vocabulary. The audio material is from native speakers and the corresponding textbook is your guide. Our Methodology, Guided Imitation, sets the student on a path to a certified level of fluency. We no longer sell our courses in Volume I and Volume II, so there's no up sell for the next level. You will receive the entire course material, on DVD, for the lowest price we can afford to produce, $19.95. Our shipping cost is $5.45 for domestic shipping and $16.45 for international shipping, which is the exact price we pay the U.S. Postal Service to ship priority mail. We do not make money off of shipping, and ship priority mail because it is the fastest and least expensive way to ship. The DVD will play in both a PC or MAC, and the audio can easily be saved to an IPOD or other MP3 device. You will need Adobe Reader to access the PDF textbook.

Our Value Proposition

The Swahili Basic Course, as you can see, sells for $220 from NTIS, the United States printing service for audio/visual materials; however, they only sell it on audio cassette as you can see from our screen capture of their shopping cart. We purchased the material from NTIS, as evidenced by the screenshot provided of the original Swahili Basic Course Audio Cassettes, and did the remastering work. We had the textbook professionally digitized into a PDF file. And then we spent countless hours remastering the cassette to a digital form, now we are providing this course to you for roughly 10% of the cost of original material. Only $19.95!

Our Quality Proposition: It's all about the Remastering!

We used Tascam Pro Audio equipment to do the initial digital remastering from cassette to compact disc. Once completed, we converted the compact discs into an uncompressed WAV file. We copied what would have been on Side B of the Cassettes, to the end of Side A, creating one continous file, saving again as a WAV file. We used audio software, like Nero and Audacity, to clean up the audio even more. This multi step process includes converting the mono file to stereo, normalizing the volume across the entire WAV file, removing "clicks and pops", doing a low frequency filter, then a high frequency filter, truncating silences to 3 seconds to ensure the audio is quick to begin and end without dead space, normalized the volume again, and outputting the file as another WAV file. We used an MP3 encoder to convert the WAV file to an MP3 file, and we tagged all files with Subject, Title, Copyright, Volume I, Volume II data.

What does all this mean?

The remastering process and filter work means that silence sounds like silence. And in this case, silence truly is golden. Our product is of unparalleled quality, and we can honestly make the claim that no one has spent more time making these courses sound as good as our courses sound. We have provided significant improvements to the sound quality versus the original masters, and even the material we were selling just a year ago, thanks to current technology. All you have to do is open our files in a sound editor and see that silence is a straight line, not wavy, and this means clarity.

About the FSI Swahili Language Course

FSI Swahili Language Course contains 14 hours of audio, and one textbook in PDF file format with 586 pages.

The Swahili Basic Course aims first of all at assisting the student to develop ability in understanding and speaking everyday Swahili of a standard variety. On the basis of well-established speech habits, he can then go on with relatively high efficiency to the further skills of reading and writing.

The pronunciation of Swahili varies slightly from one geographical area to another. In addition, since most speakers of Swahili have learned it after first learning some other language, there are noticeable discrepancies among the speech of persons with different national or tribal backgrounds. The following notes do not attempt to set forth any of these variations but only to indicate those points which are essential to an intelligible and widely acceptable pronunciation of the language.

Drills are recorded first for listening, then for familiarization through repetition, and finally for participation. During the participation step, when the student performs the required manipulation, his utterances are confirmed on the audio immediately following the space provided for his participation.

Drills are generally in two groups in any unit: a) variation drills on pattern sentences, which provide opportunities for the student to develop flexibility in the use of patterns already memorized, and b) grammar drills, which are intended to provide practice for the student in the operation of the patterns explained in the immediately preceding grammar notes.

Speaking Swahili 1 - Routing greetings

Speaking Swahili 2 - Midday greetings

Speaking Swahili 3 - Routine evening greetings

Speaking Swahili 4 - Greetings to a lady

Speaking Swahili 5 - Some variants in routine greetings

Speaking Swahili 6 - One more common variant in routine greetings

Speaking Swahili 7 - Test

Speaking Swahili 8 - Breakfast in the dining room at the hotel

Speaking Swahili 9 - Breakfast at the hotel

Speaking Swahili 10 - Aramian enters the dining room

Speaking Swahili 11 - Aramian brings his children into the dining room

Speaking Swahili 12 - One of the hungry children

Speaking Swahili 13 - Luncheon or dinner at the New Africa

Speaking Swahili 14 - Afternoon tea

Speaking Swahili 15 - Bread and butter with the tea

Speaking Swahili 16 - Preparing to buy food at the door

Speaking Swahili 17 - How are the oranges?

Speaking Swahili 18 - What do we need

Speaking Swahili 19 - Buying at the door

Speaking Swahili 20 - Where do yo live?

Speaking Swahili 21 - Where is Morogoro from here?

Speaking Swahili 22 - In a village

Speaking Swahili 23 - Where are you going?

Speaking Swahili 24 - Where has Juma gone?

Speaking Swahili 25 - Gone to pay taxes

Speaking Swahili 26 - Where has Hamisi gone?

Speaking Swahili 27 - Who is that?

Speaking Swahili 28 - An introduction

Speaking Swahili 29 - Do you know Mr?

Speaking Swahili 30 - Mr. Ochieng?

Speaking Swahili 31 - What kind of work do you do?

Speaking Swahili 32 - You're a farmer, aren't you?

Speaking Swahili 33 - What do you do with your crops?

Speaking Swahili 34 - I'm a cook nowadays

Speaking Swahili 35 - He's a day laborer

Speaking Swahili 36 - Where were you yesterday?

Speaking Swahili 37 - What is your tribal background?

Speaking Swahili 38 - Where have you been?

Speaking Swahili 39 - Do you Speak Luo?

Speaking Swahili 40 - Planning a holiday trip

Speaking Swahili 41 - Getting ready for church

Speaking Swahili 42 - Trouble in the kitchen

Speaking Swahili 43 - More trouble in the kitchen

Speaking Swahili 44 - Bicycle trouble

Speaking Swahili 45 - Trouble with a pen

Speaking Swahili 46 - I've lost a letter

Speaking Swahili 47 - Broken dishes

Speaking Swahili 48 - Lighting the lamp

Speaking Swahili 49 - Lighting the lamp

Speaking Swahili 50 - I'm not hungry

Speaking Swahili 51 - What grade are you in?

Speaking Swahili 52 - If you don't drink to much

Speaking Swahili 53 - Juma hurt his leg

Speaking Swahili 54 - Where have you been recently

Speaking Swahili 55 - How's the family?

Speaking Swahili 56 - When are you coming to see us?

Speaking Swahili 57 - Where will you go after your leave?

Speaking Swahili 58 - Why didn't you come to see us?

Speaking Swahili 59 - Is your wife feeling better?

Speaking Swahili 60 - The children have coughs

Speaking Swahili 61 - I don't feel too well

Speaking Swahili 62 - You've hurt your finger

Speaking Swahili 63 - Late to class

Speaking Swahili 64 - Classroom routine

Speaking Swahili 65 - A letter from a student abroad

Speaking Swahili 66 - My parents are going to night school

Speaking Swahili 67 - What is it like at night school

Speaking Swahili 68 - What about the fee's?

Speaking Swahili 69 - A shortage of professional people

Speaking Swahili 70 - A day off

Speaking Swahili 71 - Let's visit the farm

Speaking Swahili 72 - The farm needs rain and fertilizer

Speaking Swahili 73 - Should I get a crop loan?

Speaking Swahili 74 - Farm implements

Speaking Swahili 75 - Times for planting and weeding

Speaking Swahili 76 - Boy or girl?

Speaking Swahili 77 - Prenatal care

Speaking Swahili 78 - Post natal care

Speaking Swahili 79 - When are you getting married?

Speaking Swahili 80 - Come along to the wedding

Speaking Swahili 81 - Getting into town from the airport

Speaking Swahili 82 - A trip to Tanga

Speaking Swahili 83 - How much is the basket?

Speaking Swahili 84 - Settling on a price

Speaking Swahili 85 - Settling on a price

Speaking Swahili 86 - Buying trousers

Speaking Swahili 87 - Settling the price of the trousers

Speaking Swahili 88 - Where is the consulate?

Speaking Swahili 89 - Where is the consulate?

Speaking Swahili 90 - Clothes for the laundryman

Speaking Swahili 91 - Doing the wash

Speaking Swahili 92 - A good looking uniform

Speaking Swahili 93 - Making a bed

Speaking Swahili 94 - The mosquito net

Speaking Swahili 95 - A guest is coming for dinner

Speaking Swahili 96 - At the table

Speaking Swahili 97 - Washing dishes

Speaking Swahili 98 - Caring for the lawn

Speaking Swahili 99 - Trials of a baby sitter

Speaking Swahili 100 - Trials of a baby sitter

Speaking Swahili 101 - Riding a bicycle on the streets

Speaking Swahili 102 - Conditions of employment

Speaking Swahili 103 - Conditions of employment

Speaking Swahili 104 - Rearranging the furniture

Speaking Swahili 105 - Planning a trip by car

Speaking Swahili 106 - Planning a trip by car

Speaking Swahili 107 - In a shoe store

Speaking Swahili 108 - In a shoe store

Speaking Swahili 109 - In a shoe store

Speaking Swahili 110 - I live in the country

Speaking Swahili 111 - I live in the country

Speaking Swahili 112 - You better not go hunting without a license

Speaking Swahili 113 - You better not go hunting without a license

Speaking Swahili 114 - Time to get up

Speaking Swahili 115 - Time to get up

Speaking Swahili 116 - Time to get up

Speaking Swahili 117 - Where does the highway go?

Speaking Swahili 118 - Footpaths can be dangerous

Speaking Swahili 119 - Footpaths can be dangerous

Speaking Swahili 120 - Footpaths can be dangerous

Speaking Swahili 121 - Fetching water

Speaking Swahili 122 - Planning a hunting expedition

Speaking Swahili 123 - May I go along?

Speaking Swahili 124 - Hunting

Speaking Swahili 125 - Hunting

Speaking Swahili 126 - Hospitali za mjini

Speaking Swahili 127 - Hospitali za mjini

Speaking Swahili 128 - Hospitali za mjini

Speaking Swahili 129 - Juzaji wa vyakula sokoni

Speaking Swahili 130 - Juzaji wa vyakula sokoni

Speaking Swahili 131 - Juzaji wa vyakula sokoni

Speaking Swahili 132 - Juzaji wa vyakula sokoni

Speaking Swahili 133 - Juzaji wa vyakula sokoni

Speaking Swahili 134 - Mabadiliko mjini Dar es Salaam

Speaking Swahili 135 - Mabadiliko mjini Dar es Salaam

Speaking Swahili 136 - Mabadiliko mjini Dar es Salaam

Speaking Swahili 137 - Mabadiliko mjini Dar es Salaam

Speaking Swahili 138 - Mabadiliko mjini Dar es Salaam

Speaking Swahili 139 - Duka la Nguo

Speaking Swahili 140 - Duka la Nguo

Speaking Swahili 141 - Duka la Nguo

Speaking Swahili 142 - Duka la Nguo

Speaking Swahili 143 - Duka la Nguo

Speaking Swahili 144 - Watu wazima na maendeleo

Speaking Swahili 145 - Watu wazima na maendeleo

Speaking Swahili 146 - Watu wazima na maendeleo

Speaking Swahili 147 - Watu wazima na maendeleo

Speaking Swahili 148 - Safari ya kwenda bara

Speaking Swahili 149 - Safari ya kwenda bara

Speaking Swahili 150 - Safari ya kwenda bara

About the Swahili Language

Africa has more languages than any other continent. Swahili is one of these languages. It belongs to a group called "Bantu". One of the characteristics of the Bantu languages is lack of articles and gender.

The nouns in these tongues are grouped into "classes" by means of their nominal prefixes, eg. m, wa, ki, and vi. The name "Swahili" is derived from the Arabic word sawahel, which means "coasts." Swahili is therefore the language of the people of the coast of East Africa. Although Swahili contains a number of loan words, mostly from Arabic, Swahili is essentially an African language. In the nineteenth century, Bishop Steere of Zanzibar regarded Swahili as a key to the understanding of the culture of East Africa. His remark was very much to the point, for by learning Swahili, one learns at the same time the cultural values of the Swahili speaking people.

Swahili Pronunciation

It is not difficult to pronounce Swahili if one observes the following rules:

All consonants, except G, have the same sounds as in English.

The Swahili, F, is always pronounced as the English "f" in "fit" and "fair". It is never pronounced as the "f" in "of" which sounds like the Swahili v.

G is always hard, as in English, "go" and "good".

S is always pronounced like the "s" in "soft", and never like the "s" in "visit".

In Swahili the adjectives agree with the nouns they qualify both in number and in nominal prefixes. In Swahili adjectives do not change in order to express degrees of comparison.