Vowels

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'