What's the Swahili alphabet like?

Here's the alphabet and how to pronounce it.

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• Letter
  Pronunciation
• Aa
  a as in far
• Bb
  be as in best
• Cc
  ch as in church
• Dd
  de as in desk
• Ee
  e as in bed
• Ff
  ef as in far
• Gg
  ge as in get
• Hh
  h as in hint
• Ii
  ee as in feel
• Jj
  je as in jelly
• Kk
  ka as in cup
• Ll
  le as in let
• Mm
  em as in men
• Nn
  en as in net
• Oo
  o as in ox
• Pp
  pe as in pen
• Rr
  re as in rep
• Ss
  se as in set
• Tt
  te as in take
• Uu
  oo as in cool
• Vv
  ve as in vet
• Ww
  we as in went
• Yy
  ye as in yet
• Zz
  ze as in zoo

• Consonant combination

  There are other letters in the language but they are not considered as separate letters of the alphabet:
  
  

  CH as in the word chai, tea
  

  DH as in the word dhahabu, gold, and similar to the 'th' sound in 'this', but not in 'think'
  

  GH as in the word ghala, warehouse
  

  KH is mostly used in Arabic words, for example kheri, luck, and is similar to the 'ch' sound in the Scottish word 'loch'
  

  NG' as in the word ng’ombe, cow
  

  NG as in ngapi, meaning how much
  

  NY as in Kenya
  

  SH as in shamba, farm
  

  TH as in thamani, worth, similar to the 'th' sound in 'think'.

• Vowels and vowel combinations:

  Standard Swahili has five vowels: a, e, i, o and u. These vowels are always pronounced the same, regardless of stress (see the examples above).

• Missing letters

  Even though Swahili uses the same alphabet as English, the letters Q and X are not used in Swahili.

• Email and website conventions

  When giving an email or website address the conventions are:
  @kwa, at
  .nukta, dot
  /mkwaju, slash
  /kuunga, hyphen