Kiswahili · also called Swahili
Kiswahili: speak it, read it.
Voice typing and voice notes in Kiswahili, spoken in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and across East and Central Africa. Kiswahili and English share sentences every day, from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam.
Free on Android 8.0+. No ads.
Try it with your own Kiswahili voice note
Up to a minute, 3 tries a day. Decoded in your browser; only the audio is sent, read in memory, and not kept.
Or hear it work
Press play, and read what Bhala wrote. Unedited.
Bhala wrote
Bhala wrote
Bhala wrote
Example recordings: FLEURS (Google, 2022), CC BY 4.0, read aloud by volunteers. Transcribed by Bhala's live service, October 2026.
Writing Kiswahili
Every letter is already on your keyboard
Today Kiswahili is written in plain Latin letters with no accents. Its own words don't use q or x, and c appears only in ch.
A verb carries the whole sentence
Ninakupenda (I love you) is one word: ni- (I) + -na- (now) + -ku- (you) + -penda (love).
The prefix tells you the class
mtu, watu (person, people); kitabu, vitabu (book, books). The beginning of the word changes, not the end.
Sounds written with two letters
ch, sh, dh (dhahabu, gold), th (thelathini, thirty), gh (ghali, expensive), and ng' with an apostrophe: ng'ombe (cow), not ngoma (drum).
On your phone
Type Kiswahili on the Bhala keyboard today. Voice typing and voice notes in Kiswahili on the phone are coming soon. Until then, the reader above turns your Kiswahili voice notes into text.
Questions
How much does Bhala cost?
Nothing. Bhala Keyboard is free, with no ads.
Which phones does it work on?
Android phones with Android 8.0 or newer, from Google Play.
Does it work without data?
Yes. Typing, suggestions, voice typing and voice notes all work offline once Bhala is set up.