Swahili Language Classes
Pasadena Language Center offers Swahili lessons for all levels: beginner, intermediate, advanced and conversation. Learn Swahili in a comfortable, casual environment and make it a fun, enriching experience! We serve the following areas : Pasadena, South Pasadena, San Marino, Arcadia, Alhambra, San Gabriel, South Arroyo, Altadena, Monrovia, Sierra Madre, Glendale, Burbank, Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, La Cañada, Montrose, La Crescenta & Sun Valley.
About the Swahili Language
Swahili is a Bantu language that serves as a second language to various groups traditionally inhabiting parts of the East African coast. About 35% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language, gained through more than twelve centuries of contact with Arabic-speaking traders. It also has incorporated Persian, German, Portuguese, English, and French words into its vocabulary through contact during the last five centuries. Swahili has become a second language spoken by tens of millions in three countries, Tanzania, Kenya, and Congo (DRC), where it is an official or national language.
Curriculum and structure
The Swahili weekly classes are structured into three levels: beginner, intermediate, advanced. Each level is divided into four sub-levels: A, B, C, and D.
For the Beginner levels we use "Colloquial Swahili" by Routledge.
Beginner A (lessons 1-3)
Topics: Greetings and introductions, lifestyle, the family
Grammar: the participant markers, present tense marker, possessives, personal pronouns, the copula ni, simple negation, means of transport, the perfective and negative perfective tense, the possessive copula -na, numbers, etc.
Beginner B (lessons 4-6)
Topics: traveling, food and drinks, in the countryside
Grammar: the future tense, the object concord, telling time, days of the week, months of the year, making requests, the imperative, the optative form of the verb, adjectives, the demonstrative, comparisons, etc.
Beginner C (lessons 7- 9)
Topics: at the doctor's, visiting, social research
Grammar: the past tense, the passive form, expressing warnings and prohibitions, parts of the body, the locative copulas (-ko, -po, and -mo), asking for and giving directions, the infinitive, the habitual tense, the applicative form of the verb, the causative form, etc.
Beginner D (lessons 10-14)
Topics: a wedding celebration, disputing, stories and newspapers, communications, various kinds of music
Grammar: relative pronouns, the emphatic copula ndi-, the amba- relative, the general relative, the situational tense -ki-, conditional tenses -nge- and -ngali-, the reciprocal extension -an-, the narrative tense -ka-, the -a- tense, manner and time, the neutro-passive extension -lk-, verbs with multiple extensions, stative verbs, etc.
To find out about the material used for Intermediate and Advanced levels, please contact us.
For the Beginner levels we use "Colloquial Swahili" by Routledge.
Beginner A (lessons 1-3)
Topics: Greetings and introductions, lifestyle, the family
Grammar: the participant markers, present tense marker, possessives, personal pronouns, the copula ni, simple negation, means of transport, the perfective and negative perfective tense, the possessive copula -na, numbers, etc.
Beginner B (lessons 4-6)
Topics: traveling, food and drinks, in the countryside
Grammar: the future tense, the object concord, telling time, days of the week, months of the year, making requests, the imperative, the optative form of the verb, adjectives, the demonstrative, comparisons, etc.
Beginner C (lessons 7- 9)
Topics: at the doctor's, visiting, social research
Grammar: the past tense, the passive form, expressing warnings and prohibitions, parts of the body, the locative copulas (-ko, -po, and -mo), asking for and giving directions, the infinitive, the habitual tense, the applicative form of the verb, the causative form, etc.
Beginner D (lessons 10-14)
Topics: a wedding celebration, disputing, stories and newspapers, communications, various kinds of music
Grammar: relative pronouns, the emphatic copula ndi-, the amba- relative, the general relative, the situational tense -ki-, conditional tenses -nge- and -ngali-, the reciprocal extension -an-, the narrative tense -ka-, the -a- tense, manner and time, the neutro-passive extension -lk-, verbs with multiple extensions, stative verbs, etc.
To find out about the material used for Intermediate and Advanced levels, please contact us.