Everything You Need To Learn Ndebele
Ndebele is a Bantu language spoken by the Ndebele people in Southern Africa. It’s a recognized language of Zimbabwe, where the majority of the 5 million speakers live. It’s also spoken in Botswana and Mozambique.
The language belongs to the Nguni subgroup of Bantu languages, which means it shares many linguistic similarities with other Nguni languages, such as Zulu and Swati.
Ndebele is broken into two dialects: Northern Ndebele, spoken in Zimbabwe, and Southern Ndebele, spoken in South Africa. Speakers of the two can understand each other only to a certain extent.
Unfortunately for learners interested in this language, there are hardly any resources available online for learning Ndebele. We’ve listed everything we could find, and hope you’ll get something out of them.
Ndebele Children’s Books
You can pick up plenty of useful words and phrases by reading kids’ books in Ndebele. These types of books are perfect for beginners as an introduction to Ndebele, because they use simple language, short sentences, and include plenty of colorful illustrations that make them a joy to read.
To get the best out of Ndebele kids’ books, choose bilingual English-Ndebele dual language stories. You’ll be able to use the accompanying English text to understand unfamiliar words, thereby adding plenty of Ndebele words to your vocabulary.
Ndebele Fiction
Once you’re comfortable with your basic Ndebele skills, you should move on to more advanced reading material that uses more complex language.
Reading Ndebele books written for older readers will give your language skills an enormous boost, not just in terms of the plethora of new words you’ll pick up, but also in your overall command of the language.
