All vowel sounds are short. For example:
| A | as in 'car' |
| E | as in 'red' |
| I | as the 'ee' sound in 'peel' |
| O | as in 'off' |
| U | as the 'oo' sound in 'cool' |
Consonants
These never vary in sound.
| B | as in 'bat' |
| C | is only found coupled with H as CH. This is pronounced as the CH in 'church'. |
| D | as in 'duck' |
| F | as in 'far' |
| G | as in 'give' |
| H | as in 'hit' |
| J | as in 'jump' |
| K | as in 'kite' |
| L | as in 'lick' |
| M | as in 'men' |
| N | as in 'not' |
| P | as in 'pea' |
| R | as in 'rake' |
| S | as in 'stop' |
| T | as in 'time' |
| V | as in 'vine' |
| W | as in 'will' |
| Y | as in 'yam' |
| Z | as in 'zoo' |
A note about consonants:
If a consonant occurs without a vowel at the beginning of a word, it is usually given it's own syllable. For example:
mtoto (child) is pronounced M-TOE-TOE
ndiyo (four) is pronounced N-DEE-YO
The Swahili alphabet contains 24 letters. The letters Q and X are not included in the Swahili alphabet.
Combinations
These are not considered as separate letters.| CH | as in 'church' |
| DH | as the TH is 'that', never the TH in 'think' |
| GH | a voiced gutteral sound |
| KH | found in Arabic words only. A voiceless gutteral sound similar to the Scottish CH in 'loch' |
| NG' | similar to the NG sound in 'singer' |
| NG | each consonent is given its normal pronunciation. Ngapi (how much) is pronounced N-GAW-PEE |
| NY | as in 'Kenya' |
| SH | as in 'shop' |
| TH | as in 'think' |
