Setswana
Useful Setswana Web Resources
Here are some of the online Setswana language-learning resources that I’ve found to be super helpful. Most of them are primary introductory sources for learning.
The first website provided a jumping off point for me: the Setswana Wiki page. I even found my mentors here!
Other introductory sources
The Peace Corps learning videos are a really helpful introduction to Setswana. It includes 18 videos that introduces greetings, how to describe yourself, things around the town you are staying in, etc.
AfriGIS has 26 introductory and short podcasts, transcripts, and worksheets. It is another introduction to the language but does have other topics not included in the Peace Corps videos such as future tense, prepositions, antonyms, etc.
Live Lingua has another Peace Corps handbook that includes a really helpful list of verbs, an introduction to pronouns, and has associated audio recordings.
The University of South Africa has a variety of helpful Setswana phrases that are a bit more complicated than what some of the other online resources provide. These also do something similar for Zulu, Xhosa, and Sotho.
Listening
RadioGarden can be used to listen to radio in Gaborone that sometimes has talk shows in Setswana.
Youtube provides a ton of listening resources. Here are some of the ones that I’ve found:
- The Botswana National Anthem
- A children’s book read aloud Tselane le Dimo
- A sort-of soap opera in Setswana. Has english subtitles.
- Make-up tutorials in Setswana (I don’t wear make-up, but I get the idea and can therefore better guess at what she is saying)
- A full-length movie: O Bone O Ja Sereto. Unfortunately, it does not have english subtitles.
Dictionary
Oxford provides English to Setswana and Setswana to English translations that include sentences with those words.
There are lots of other offline resources that I’ve used to supplement these online resources. I have not yet found a good source for intermediate or advanced level Setswana resources.
