Book excerpt: This course has been writing for those who wish to teach themselves Swahili, but have little or no background knowledge of the language. The easy-to-follow steps are backed up by regular exercises which practice and develop the student's command of Swahili. The book covers all the important grammar points and in addition includes both English-Swahili and Swahili- English vocabulary lists, a summary of verb tenses, a simplified glossary of grammatical terms and other useful appendices.