Karibuni Kenya

In this words of the week section I’ll write some Swahili words and their translations.  

Swahili is a tremendously fun language to learn, speak and listen to, so I’ll put up both useful words and those that sound a bit different, funny or are a bit of a mouthful.

With Swahili, the words are usually simply pronounced as they are written, with the main emphasis on the penultimate syllable, although on some words I will give a pronunciation guide.

To begin with then some useful words:

Habari yako?:   How are you?

Nzuri:  Fine (Use this to answer Habari yako)

Kwaheri (or Kwaherini to multiple people):   Goodbye

Lala Salama:  Sleep peacefully

Hakuna Matata:  No problem (Hakuna Shida or Hakuna Taabu can also be used)

A word with multiple, in some contexts possibly quite amusing, meanings:

Nya Nya:   Tomato, or (apparently when pronounced slightly differently, although I’ve never been able to hear the difference) Grandma.

That’s all for today, but I’ll try to keep adding new words so that hopefully by the end of my trip there’ll be enough to get a basic grasp of Kiswahili.