Swahili Conversations

[leosmith]

Per this thread, I have begun developing what is to be a set of at least 100 six minute passages in Tanzanian Swahili. As of this post, 18 are finished and 22 are in work. I expect to have 100 done by the end of January or so; I need them for myself by that time frame, so I am motivated to get it done

Each conversation has audio and a transcript. They are one-on-one conversations between native speakers; some are 2 males, some 2 females and some mixed. They are completely free and can be found here at Language Tools. You have to register to see them, but registration is free and easy. Karibuni sana!

(edit: these are done now)

[Teango]

Poa, Leo! With Swahili on my wish list, I look forward to checking out this resource later. I've always loved the sound of this language.

Incidentally, will you be heading off to Tanzania once you've finished this project?

Bahati njema (good luck)!

[leosmith]

will you be heading off to Tanzania once you've finished this project?

Asante sana bwana. Yes, Ill be re-learning my Swahili Dec-Feb while I'm in Thailand, and visiting Tanzania March.

[leosmith]

We have 30 loaded now, and another 30 in work!

[leosmith]

48 loaded now, 22 in work.

I thought some of you might like a sample of these, so here is Swahili Conversations 004, Dating:
audio
transcript

[leosmith]

80 loaded, 20 in work.

After about a week of reading, I'm doing half of one of these conversations per day. I'm pretty anal about looking everything up that I don't know (we just added a Swahili dictionary to the reading tool), so it's taking me about 30 min or so. I predict after another week I'll be reading 1 per day. I'm biased obviously, but these are really fun reads so far. Due to my "false" beginner status, I was fortunate not to have to start with absolute beginner material. Happy about that

[leosmith]

We are finished! Actually, we finished over a month ago but I forgot to post about it, haha.
I have personally read/listened to the first 50 conversations, so they should be smooth sailing for others to use. The reason this is the case, for those of you who aren't familiar with the Reading Tool, is sometimes words aren't in the dictionary (we draw from google translate) or are just plain wrong. But if a picky learner like myself goes through it, making sure to add definitions that are missing and correcting definitions that are wrong, the next person is going to see nothing but correct definitions pop up.

And Swahili online dictionaries are particularly bad. So bad, in fact, that I hired an excellent translator to go through and do the same thing that I'm doing - mouse over every word and make sure the definitions are right in the Reading Tool. That's why you can be sure you are working with quality, native conversations with correct definitions when you use LT Conversations.

Karibuni sana!

[tuckamore]

leosmith — thank you for creating Swahili Conversations! What a tremendous resource! And, the timing is impeccable!

I feel so lucky that material like this exist for Swahili. I went through the first conversation this past weekend and was pleasantly surprised at how accessible it was to me already. (The Reading Tool was indispensable.) I thought I might have to work up to using it. From this first conversation, I’ve now got the likes of the structure ’nilikuwa nataka nifahamu’/’nilikuwa nataka ufahamu’ down pat. I will still need to put a lot of effort into being able to listen to the conversation unassisted. But, everything is there for me to make this happen. Asante sana!

[Brisaswar]

I just wanted to say thank you so much for this!! Super appreciated!

[leosmith]

I just wanted to say thank you so much for this!! Super appreciated!

Karibu sana!