I never envisioned I’d let updates slide for so many months. But, I had mostly disconnected from the internet over the last months, so this is the result. Rest assured, though, silence ≠ no progress. I have a few accomplishments to report.
Twende!I completed
Twende! to lesson 32 of 35. I did large chunks of chapters in 3 passes. The multiple passes were time consuming, but with each pass, the exercises became easier, which was an encouraging sign of progress.
I like this book. Lessons begin with a dialogue and new vocabulary, followed by word use and grammar explanations, then by exercises, and ends with some cultural notes. A major strength is that each chapter has lots of practical exercises with answer keys. I wish I had something like this for Thai.
But, there is a serious negative — there is no dictionary. This deficiency is the sole reason I haven’t completed the last few lessons, yet. By lesson 20-something, I was swamped with too many shakily known vocabulary words and looking for their meanings became too much of a chore. So, I quit. I would hesitate to recommend this book to a complete beginner because of this shortcoming. My prior knowledge of some hundreds of words is what allowed me to get as far as I did. (I’m using an old edition of this book, so perhaps the new one has a dictionary?)
Supposedly, there are accompanying audio recordings for the dialogues and other tidbits, but I haven’t been able to find them. It’s a shame because several chapters focus specifically on pronunciation. These chapters held promise, but were mostly useless without audio. It’s my understanding that this book is currently published as
Swahili for Starters and I haven’t seen any reference to audio in my searches for this addition either. If anybody knows otherwise, I’d be happy to be updated.
Simplified SwahiliAfter hitting my vocabulary limit with
Twende!, I moved onto
Simplified Swahili by Peter Wilson. I finished this book a couple weeks ago. I liked this book, too. This book is filled with grammar explanations and tons of translation based exercises with answer keys. There are no dialogues. The intro of the book says it limits examples and exercises to 1000 words. With numerous translation exercises repeating most of these 1000 words multiple times, I now probably have a solid grasp of about 80-85% of these words. I had never before done translation exercises as a major part of language learning and thought they were helpful, especially for identifying grammar weaknesses.
One aspect of this book that suited my learning style and memory was the presentation of new vocabulary. Each chapter was almost exclusively devoted to presenting new vocabulary of one word type (noun or verb or adjective, etc.), and new nouns were always grouped by noun class. Something about this presentation style created a strong memory hook for me — if I could remember which chapter (first several chapters or chapter after such and such adverb was introduced) or where on the page the word was presented, I could easily track other information from my mind like, whether an adjective was static or not, or identify the noun class of an ambiguous noun. Grouping of new nouns by noun class also helped with recall of their class because visualizing where on a page I saw the noun and, thus, what other nouns it was associated with would lead me to its class by association.
Funnily enough, the first chapter initially put me off because it introduced ‘jambo’ as a greeting. During my stays in Tanzania, I had only heard ’jambo’ in the most touristy of touristy venues. And, when we replied with sijambo or hatujambo, large, unassuming smiles followed. But, I discovered this book’s standards should not be based on the first chapter. (I did hear that ‘jambo’ may be more common in Kenya. However, I have no experience to know whether this is true or not.)
Where have I seen the most progress: — Expressions of location used to be completely opaque to me. Iko — ipo — wapo — liko — etc: I used to be like, “what the hey? I don’t know which to use.” Now, I get them.
— Noun class agreements are a piece of cake now. I have to credit Language Transfer for setting up my mental framework for concordant agreements. Then, all the exercises in
Twende! and
Simplified Swahili really helped to solidify my grasp. I wouldn’t be able to produce all my knowledge spontaneously, yet, but the groundwork has been built. I think exposure will help me further internalize the patterns.
(Note to would be Swahili learners: Please don’t let the idea of noun classes scare you. Noun classes really aren’t bad, especially if learned systematically. They will take a bit of effort, but they are surprisingly easy to learn.)
— Same progress as for noun classes above for demonstratives. Before listening to Language Transfer, demonstratives were a huge random mess to me. I haven’t internalized them as much as I would like, but the improvement is undeniable.
— Conditional forms and usage probably straddle my areas of progress and weakness. To promote a glass-half-full perspective, I’m listing them here under progress. I’ve come a long way in recognizing the various forms and tenses. If I take my time to understand or produce a sentence, they are decidedly not difficult. But, I still have a long way to go to really get them.
— I took a look at the first couple paragraphs of Alice in Wonderland in Swahili (something I found and downloaded a long time ago with aspirations that I’d return to Swahili one day) and I could actually read it. It is awesome to see this sort of accessibility so early in my studies. (I weep in Thai, though.)
Specific area of Weakness:— The causative verb suffix, the prepositional verb suffix and combinations of these two with each other or with the passive — yuck! This right here is the hardest I’ve come across for any Swahili grammar that I’ve yet been exposed to (who knows if there is something worse to come?). I can mostly do the conjugations as I would any type of math or chemistry formula. It’s using them and extracting meaning without doing the equivalent of a logical puzzle. Most of the other verb forms that I’ve been exposed to I more or less have a (imperfect) grip on them. I think lots of exposure will be necessary to grasp these guys.
— I’ve failed at getting any listening practice over this past half year. I know
leosmith’s Swahili Conversations at
https://languagetools.io/ is an awesome resource that I should use. (I had gone through the first 4 lesson’s earlier in the year.) But, by mostly avoiding the internet these months, I had little motivation to sit at my computer to work through any other lessons. And, it didn’t help that the 2 books I was working with had no audio. I need to develop a plan, but I’m feeling apathetic.
— Vocabulary. Full stop. It’s always the case for language learners, isn’t it? I reckon my passive knowledge is close to 1000 words. I based this estimate on
Simplified Swahili claiming they restrict their lessons to 1000 words and that I know I know handfuls of words that are not included in the book, which would make up for the words I don’t remember from the book. But, even with my measly 1000 word base, my comprehension is already benefiting from the way Swahili repurposes roots of words among different parts of speech.
FutureThere are numerous next steps to take. Above all, I should prioritize exposure. Listening should be at the top of the list. I may go through
Simplified Swahili again, because its easy to do as I’m in a routine with it. The book recommends using the answer key and working backwards as an extension of its exercises. But, I know I'd benefit more from using Swahili Conversations. So, I should really just get my butt in gear and open the website again. I don't know what is holding me back. I guess I could view coming back to language-learners.org as a step towards this goal. Who knows what I'll wind up doing next?