Learn 4 honest reasons you need Swahili slang words and why they are so vital to truly learning and mastering the language.

Teachers may normally cringe at the thought of their students learning Swahili slang words. After all, slang words and phrases are typically defined as being grammatically incorrect. So why would your teacher want you to spend time learning the “wrong way” to speak Swahili? Here are 4 of the top reasons why you should study slang words and expressions when learning Swahili or any new language.

1. Native Speakers Use Slang Expressions in Everyday Conversation

If you are going to study a foreign language and plan to use it to speak with native speakers, then you have to learn slang words and expressions. Otherwise, just using formal expressions and grammar may alienate you from native speakers and make it more difficult to establish a real connection. So it is best to at least learn some common slang words and expressions if you’re planning to meet or speak socially with someone.

2. Slang Words Are Used All Throughout Swahili Culture

If you turn on any popular Swahili TV show, listen to any song, or watch any movie, you are quickly going to see the value of learning Swahili slang phrases. Just like everyday conversations between native speakers, Swahili culture is filled with slang phrases and expressions. Without at least some knowledge of the more common slang phrases, popular culture and most conversations will be very confusing and potentially alienating.

3. Slang Expressions Help You Better Express Your True Thoughts and Feelings

Only relying on formal grammar and vocabulary is very limiting, especially in social situations. Just like in your native language, using the appropriate Swahili slang words can help you express a broader range of emotions, thoughts, and feelings.

4. Proper Use of Slang Makes You Sound More Natural

We’ve all met foreigners who technically used formal language perfectly but still sounded odd and well….foreign. But when you use the right slang words and expressions, you will sound more natural and like a true native speaker. If you notice, even most politicians include a sprinkling of slang expressions and words throughout their speeches to help them sound more natural and to better connect with the audience.

The Dark Side of Slang Expressions

Learning Swahili slang words can indeed help you sound more natural, better understand the people and culture, and make integration much easier. However, there is a dark side: using the wrong slang expressions can also make you look foolish, uneducated, and potentially disrespectful.

But how do you know which slang words or phrases to use and when?

The truth is that you can’t learn the most modern and appropriate slang words in textbooks or formal classroom settings. By the time the information gets incorporated into a formal curriculum, it’s already outdated and no longer in use by actual Swahili people. And while you can learn current slang expressions from Swahili TV shows, movies, songs, and games, you may not understand the context. If that happens, you may use the right Swahili slang words but in the wrong situation and still look like a fool or possibly even offend someone.

So where can you learn current slang expressions and the right context in which to use them?

At SwahiliPod101, native speaking instructors create audio and video lessons that can include slang expressions and words. Our instructors provide context and examples for all the Swahili slang words used in any lesson to make sure students understand the right time and place to use them.

Swahili slang words and expressions may be grammatically incorrect but they are vital to truly understanding and immersing yourself in the culture. In fact, it will be very difficult to fully understand any movie, TV show, song, game, or even 1-on-1 conversation without knowing a few of the more common slang expressions.

However, it is important to learn the proper context and use of even popular slang expressions or you may come across as confusing, disrespectful, or uneducated.
At SwahiliPod101, you’ll learn how to use slang phrases and words to draw the right attention and avoid these problems.

Don’t forget to sign up for a Free Lifetime Account on SwahiliPod101.com to access tons of FREE lessons and features to become fluent in Swahili!

You want to learn Swahili but you don’t want to spend a cent. You don’t want to lose time creating an account if they ask you for your credit card just after. For you Swahili learner, we tell you how you will access great resources for free for life and without card or having to pay. This is your unique path to fluency for free.

SwahiliPod101 is not really free, is it?
Although there are paid plans, yes, it is FREE. Every single lesson that we have ever created has been free for a certain period of time. And every new audio and video lesson (we publish 3-5 lessons a week) is completely free to access for 3 weeks before going into our lesson library.

What’s a Free Lifetime Account?
A Free Lifetime Account is – simply put – a free membership at SwahiliPod101.

What do I get with this Free Account? How can I learn for free for life?
Here’s how you learn every day without paying a cent at SwahiliPod101. You have access to all of these features for life:

Stuck in traffic? Losing time in your car? Have you ever felt that in all this wasted time, you could have watched the 750 episodes of One Piece, finished the last Super Mario ten times, or even better…you could have learned Swahili? Between family, friends and work, in addition to this time-consuming commute, it can become difficult to find time to properly learn Swahili.

Fortunately, every problem has a solution, and what could be a better solution than turning that commute time into learning time? Stop passing the time mindlessly listening to the radio and try some of our best tips for mastering Swahili in your car!

Click Here To Start Learning Swahili Right Now!

You can learn Swahili in your car, hands free
While driving, it’s important that you keep your focus on the road, so this is why our top tips won’t require you to use your hands!

Listening to Swahili audio content in the car is a good way to learn
This is because it is a fun and efficient way to learn. With SwahiliPod101.com podcasts, you will be able to discover Swahili culture through topics about everyday life. Instead of the radio, listen to a Swahili podcast adapted to your level, from Absolute Beginner to Advanced, and you will make progress sooner that you would expect!

You can listen to Swahili music in the car
Did you know that you can learn Swahili by singing while driving? Listen to songs from cartoon or drama and try to identify some words you learned.

Challenge yourself! Use the Swahili you’ve studied up to this point and see how much you understand! Making the jump to real-life Swahili is a scary one, but friendly children’s songs are a great place to start!

Click Here To Sign Up For A FREE Lifetime Account!

You can learn alone in your car
When you’re driving alone, you can be as loud as you want – there is nothing better for remembering your Swahili lessons than repeating loudly, again and again. Next time you see a driver who seems to be talking alone, you will know he or she is just learning Swahili!

You can learn through repetition with your passengers
If there are passengers in the car, it can be more stimulating to learn together. You can set a role play with Swahili dialogues. With SwahiliPod101.com, you can download all the lessons transcript including the dialogues, as a PDF. Print it out and have some fun speaking in Swahili!

One of the passengers can answer the quiz available on each of our lessons, while another can correct that person. Listening to someone at a more advanced level of Swahili or a better accent is positive and helps you improve.

You can learn Swahili offline
Do you have a poor connection or are unable to use the Internet? It’s not a problem for learning Swahili! Before you start your commute, use our App to download the lessons you want to study and the podcast you want to listen to in your car, and you will be able to enjoy your lessons offline. Entering a tunnel won’t be a problem anymore. What a pleasure to listen to audio content without having the host freezing every 5 seconds!

Click here to download the App and learn offline!

You can learn every day at your own pace
One of the best approaches for learning a language is little by little and often. It’s not efficient to take in a huge amount of information at one time. What you need is to study on a regular basis – a little bit of Swahili every day. You commute several days a week, and that is all time you can take advantage of!

You have the freedom to choose the lessons and podcasts you want to focus on, at your own rhythm. You may want to do a little revision or discover how to talk about a new topic. And if you’re wondering what to learn next, you can use the new Learning Paths, which is our customized pathway feature that gives you a step-by-step way to learn Swahili without getting lost!

Click here to access Learning Paths at SwahiliPod101!

If you don’t have a car and commute by another method, these tips are still valid! Learning Swahili is no longer limited to the classroom or your house; there are so many benefits to learning in your car or elsewhere. Reaching a conversational level will take you less time than you could ever have imagined! Don’t forget to sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and enjoy our content!

Hey Swahili Learner!

Shortcuts for learning and tips to remember Swahili words are useful but it’s even also important to fix objectives to reach every month! What Is Your Language Learning Goal for the Month?
In your journey to become fluent and conversational here are 10 monthly goals you can go after!

Click Here To Start Learning Swahili Right Now!

1) I’ll finish Survival Phrases series on SwahiliPod101.com by listening to two lesson a day.

2) I’ll give a 3 minute introductory speech in Swahili to my Swahili friends.

3) I’ll finish reading one Swahili book by reading 10 pages a day.

4) I’ll pass my Swahili test.

5) I’ll write 10 postcards in Swahili to my Swahili friends.

6) I’ll memorize 5 Swahili songs.

7) I’ll finish memorizing 350 words with Flashcards on SwahiliPod101.com.

8 ) I’ll fully understand one Swahili movie by watching it every day.

9) I’ll learn how to talk about past, present and future events.

10) I’ll master 150 words by memorizing 5 words a day.

No money, no credit card required, just you and the ton of lessons!

If you follow those monthly goals, you will be sure to make some amazing progress. And remember, if you’re really interested in getting on the fast-track to fluency, sign up for a FREE lifetime account at SwahiliPod101.com!

Hey Swahili learner!

We recently gave you some shortcuts to learn Swahili.
In your journey to become fluent and conversational in less time that is needed to say “Gotta catch ’em all”, we will this time give you the Top 15 tips to remember words!

1. Use repetition: reading, writing and speaking words over and over again.

2. Associate words with drawings, pictures and funny scenes.

3. Try to use the language routinely in the context of daily life.

4. Reading as much as possible, especially the newspaper, helps you to remember words.

Click Here To Start Learning Swahili Right Now!

5. Learn about the roots of words and how different words are related to each other.

6. Speak as often as possible with native speakers.

7. Categorize new words with other related words that you already know.

8. Be persistent in practicing everyday by talking to your family or your dog, even though they don’t understand you.

Click Here To Sign Up For A FREE Lifetime Account!

9. Say words out loud so that you can actually hear them.

10. Associate new words with words that sound similar in your native language.

11. Listen to songs and memorize the lyrics.

12. Often watch TV or YouTube videos that are designed for young children.

Access tons of Audio and Video lessons for Free!

13. Associate new words with stories, games or movies.

14. Try to use the new word in a simple sentence so you learn whole phrases, not just individual words.

15. Try to think in Swahili, so it becomes natural to your thought process.

No money, no credit card required, just you and the ton of lessons!

If you follow all those tips, you will be a step closer to reach your goal. And remember, if you’re really interested in getting on the fast-track to fluency, sign up for a FREE lifetime account at SwahiliPod101.com!

Learn a little Swahili everyday with the free Swahili Word of the Day Widget. Check back daily for more vocabulary!

dandelioni dandelion (noun)

Dandelioni huliwa kwenye supu na kachumbari katika sehemu zingine.
Dandelions are eaten in soups and salads in someplaces.

Dandelioni njano.
yellow dandelions

Own a blog or website? Share free language content with your readers with the Swahili Word of the Day with Audio Widget. Click here for instructions on how to embed and customize this free widget!

Hello Listeners,

When it comes to listening to and understanding Swahili, most beginners struggle. They hear the few words they know. And the rest just fly in one ear and out the other. Does this happen to you too?

In this post, you’re going to learn about 3 tactics that are guaranteed to sharpen your listening comprehension skills!

1. Try Our Listening Comprehension Series

Click Here To Check Out Our Absolute Beginner Videos!

This is a complete lesson series dedicated purely to testing and improving your listening skills. You can find all of the videos from this series in the “Bonus Video Lessons” section of our site! In the video lesson, you’ll hear a dialogue in your target language. Then, you’ll be asked to answer a question about the dialogue to check if you understood the sentences. There are no translations except for the subtitles, so everything you hear is in your target language!

2. Review The Dialogue Again And Again

Boost Your Swahili Skills Now! Click Here To See Our Lessons!

Most learners listen to a listen and simply move on, but by reviewing it again, you make sure that you fully understand what you hear. The key to fully understanding a dialogue is to review it over and over again. With our audio lessons, you get the dialogue track so you can listen to the conversation without distractions.

3. Read Along With Our Line-By-Line Feature

Click Here To Start Learning Swahili Now!

Reading along is the best way to get the meaning instantly. With the Line-by-Line feature, or the PDF lesson notes, reading along is easier than ever! You can get the transcript of the dialogue in the target language, the transliterated version, or the translated version. This is available for all of the lessons in this series!

With these 3 tactics, you’re sure to improve your listening comprehension skills and get one step closer to your language learning goals! Try it out and let us know what you think!

Click Here To Sign Up For Your FREE Account!

Speaking is usually the #1 weakness for all Swahili learners. This is a common issue among language learners everywhere. The reason for this is obvious: When language learners first start learning a language, they usually start with reading. They read online articles, books, information on apps and so on. If they take a class, they spend 20% of their time repeating words, and 80% of the time reading the textbook, doing homework or just listening to a teacher. So, if you spend most of your time reading instead of speaking, you might get better at reading but your speaking skills never grow. You get better at what you focus on.

So if you want to improve you speaking skills, you need to spend more of your study time on speaking. Here are five tips to help you get started:

1. Read out loud
If you’re listening to a lesson and reading along, read out loud. Then re-read and speed up your tempo. Do this again and again until you can speak faster. Try your best to pronounce the words correctly, but don’t obsess about it. Read swiftly, emote and put some inflection on the sentences. Reading aloud helps to train the muscles of your mouth and diaphragm to produce unfamiliar words and sounds.

2. Prepare things to say ahead of time.
As you may know from experience, most learners run out of things to say. But, if you prepare lines ahead of time, you won’t be at a loss for words in conversations. This will help you not only to learn how to say the words, but how to say them in the right context. A good way to prepare yourself before conversations is with our Swahili Pronunciation Series, which teaches you how to pronounce Swahili letters easily:

Click here to learn proper Swahili pronunciation.

3. Use shadowing (repeat the dialogues as you hear them).
Shadowing is an extremely useful tool for increasing fluency as well as improving your accent and ability to be understood. Shadowing helps create all the neural connections in your brain to produce those words and sentences quickly and accurately without having to think about it. Also, as mentioned in tip #1, shadowing helps develop the muscle memory in all the physical parts responsible for the production of those sounds. Depending on what your primary and target languages are, it’s quite likely that there are a lot of sounds your mouth just isn’t used to producing. Shadowing can be done, for example, when watching TV shows or movies or listening to music.

Each one of our lessons begins with a dialogue. Try to shadow the conversation line by line, and you’ll be mastering it in no time.

Click here to for a FREE taste of our Absolute Beginner series!

4. Review again and again.
This is the key to perfection, and we can’t emphasize it enough. Most learners don’t review! If you review and repeat lines again and again, you’ll be speaking better, faster and with more confidence.

5. DON’T BE AFRAID TO MAKE MISTAKES!
You’d be surprised by how many people try to avoid talking! The more you speak, the faster you learn – and that is why you’re learning Swahili. Practice speaking every chance you get: whether it’s ordering coffee, shopping or asking for directions.

Hello Listener,

You’ll want to know about these 2 new Swahili learning tools and features. They’re great for reviewing, motivation and progress. One is an unofficial sneak peek.

So what are they? The brand new Achievement Badges and the Word Bank! And… if you want to master Swahili, unlock our proven learning system at 26% OFF and get a Bonus 6.5-hour Audiobook!

In this month’s newsletter:

1. Ends Friday! Learn Swahili with 26% OFF & a FREE Audiobook!
No school. No stress. Learn Swahili at your pace and start speaking in minutes with effective lessons! ‘Til Friday only, get 26% OFF any 1- or 2-year plan and a BONUS Swahili Audiobook as a 2-for-1 deal. You get access to 50+ hours of audio and video lessons by teachers, lesson notes, motivational progress stats, apps, study tools and more. Just $2.96/month and up to $62.40 OFF. Hurry! Ends Friday, 8/28/2015!

Click here to learn Swahili and get 26% OFF. Up to $62.40 in savings.
(The free 6.5-hour Swahili audiobook will be inside your welcome email)

2. NEW Feature! Learn and Stay Motivated with NEW Achievement Badges
Learning Swahili? You deserve recognition and motivation. So, if you’re a Premium PLUS member… you can now unlock new badges as your Swahili improves. Your Premium PLUS teacher will give out badges as you complete weekly assignments. The result? You master more Swahili, unlock badges for your progress, and stay motivated to keep going.

Click here to learn about the Premium PLUS Achievement Badges!

3. Here’s a Sneak Peek at the Newly Redesigned Word Bank!
We haven’t fully announced this yet… but here’s a sneak peek! The Word Bank – your personal collection of words and phrases – is better than ever. What’s new? First, a shiny new design. You can sort and manage your vocab and phrases with custom labels. And feel free to print out your entries as physical study material or export them as files! Not a Premium member? Take advantage of the 26% discount by Friday.

Premium Users: Click here to access the New Word Bank!
(Note: You must be logged in to access this)

To your fluency,
Team SwahiliPod101

P.S. We’re giving you a BONUS 6.5-Hour Audiobook. Get 26% OFF by Friday!
No school or textbooks necessary to learn Swahili! In fact, you get a FREE Audiobook when you get 26% OFF any 1- or 2-year plan. Master Swahili in LESS time with this 2-for-1 deal! Unlock our learning system – over 50 hours of audio and video lesson by real teachers and more! Just $2.96/month and up to $62.40 OFF. Hurry! Ends Friday, 8/28/2015!

Ends Friday! Click here to learn Swahili and Get 26% OFF!
(Your FREE Audiobook will instantly be available in your welcome email)

There are plenty of destinations where you can get by with English, but sometimes you want to do better than just ‘get by’. Here are 6 reasons you should learn the basics of the language of your next trip destination.

1. You will be able to discover your destination better than other tourists.
Getting by is one thing, but actually experiencing a trip abroad is quite another. No amount of guidebooks and online research can compensate for a basic lack of language ability. Speaking the language of your destination permits you to explore that destination beyond the regular tourist traps. Your language skills will not only allow you to dig into all the hidden gems of your destination, but they will also allow you to mingle with the locals to get a true experience on your holiday. Think of it this way: you’re not restricted to talking to the people at the tourist desk anymore.

2. Knowing how to communicate with local police or medical personnel can be life-saving.
Before you leave for your destination, make sure you learn how to ask for help in that destination’s local tongue. Do you know how to ask the waiter if this dish has peanuts in it? Or tell your host family that you’re allergic to fish? Can you tell the local doctor where it hurts? Moreover, an awareness of an environment improves your chance of remaining safe inside it. For example, walking around a busy marketplace, dazzled by an unfamiliar language, signs and accents will instantly render any tourist a more attractive mark for pickpockets. Communicating with other people, asking questions and looking confident will make you look like a semi-local yourself, and will ward off potential thieves.

Click here for Swahili Survival Phrases that will help you in almost every situation

3. It helps you relax.
Traveling is much less stressful when you understand what that announcement at the airport was saying, or if this bus line reaches your hotel. These things stress you out when traveling and they disappear when you understand the language. This allows you to focus on planning your trip in a better, easier way.

4. Speaking the language can provide you with a way to get to know people you’d never otherwise have the opportunity to speak with.
Sometimes those relationships turn into friendships, and other times they’re nothing more than a lively conversation. Either way, as Nelson Mandela said: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” When you approach someone – even staff at a store or restaurant – with English, rather than their own language, an invisible divide has already been erected. Making even a small effort to communicate in the language of the place you’re visiting can go a long way and you’ll find many more doors open up to you as a result.

Click here for to for essential Swahili vocabulary you need to know to start a conversation with anyone

5. You’ll be a better ambassador for your country.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we know very little about other countries and cultures, especially the local politics. And what we do know is often filtered to us by the media, which tends to represent only certain interests. When you can speak the local language, you’re able to answer questions that curious locals have about your country and culture. Are you frustrated with how your country is presented in global news? Are you embarrassed by your country’s leaders and want to make it clear that not everyone is like that where you’re from? This is a very good opportunity to share your story with people who have no one else to ask. We all have a responsibility to be representatives of the place we come from.

6. Learning another language can fend off Alzheimer’s, keep your brain healthy and generally make you smarter.
For more information, check out this blog post about the 5 Benefits of Learning a New Language.