Zahir K Dhalla

Learn Good Swahili Zahir K Dhalla

Learn Good Swahili is presented in 3 volumes:
Volume 1: A Complete Grammar. 349 pages.
Volume 2: 6,000+ words Swahili-English Dictionary. 370 pages. Includes a built-in mini-thesaurus. *, **see examples below.
Volume 3: 6,000+ words English-Swahili Dictionary. 427 pages. Includes a built-in mini-thesaurus. *, **see examples below.
Volume 1 contains step-by-step explanations of all features of Swahili grammar, with lots of examples and exercises, plus indexes. For anyone new to Swahili or wants to improve or brush up - whether you are a tourist, an expatriate, a volunteer, etc in East Africa - these are the books you need to enhance your experience there, for being able to communicate with locals in their language is always most satisfying.
All proceeds of this book will go to needy school children in Tanga, Tanzania where the author was born, grew up and finished high school.

*An example of a dictionary entry:

lingana   v     match e.g. kusoma kwa mtoto kunalingana umri wake, the child's reading matches her age

where "v" indicates verb. Note: All Swahili text in all volumes is italicized as seen above, to visually distinguish it from all the other English text.

**The built-in mini-thesaurus takes two forms:

(1) Related Words e.g. the entry for "abadan" has Related Words, as follows: ["F" = foreign-origin; "adv" = adverb]

abadan   F   adv    always e.g. yeye abadan haridhi, he is never contented
Related Words:
baadaye, later/then
daima, always
halafu, then
huenda, sometimes
kabla ya, before
kamwe, never
kila mara, every time, always
kisha, afterwards
milele, forever
punde, shortly
sasa, now
zamani, earlier

(2) Words grouped under the following categories: body, building structure, fauna, food, person, produce, terrain, tool, utensil, vegetation (including flora) and for adjectives, colours e.g. some of the entries under body are, in alphabetical order in English: [entries in brackets such as "(m, mi)" = (singular, plural prefixes); "n" = noun; "V", "xFF", "xFV", "U", "T" are noun groups as explained in Volume 1, Chapter 3: Nouns]

mkono(m, mi) n body: arm V
kwapa(-, ma) n body: armpit xFF
mgongo(m, mi) n body: back V
ndevu(-) n body: beard xFV
mshipa(m, mi) n body: blood vessel V
...
mkia(m, mi) n body: tail V
paja(-, ma) n body: thigh xFF
koo(-, ma) n body: throat xFF
ulimi(ul, nd) n body: tongue U
mkonga(m, mi) n body: trunk (elephant) V
kiuno(ki, vi) n body: waist T

(A total of over 70 entries under body)