LangMedia
Swahili in Tanzania
Calendar
The Tanzanian business week goes from Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday are weekend days. However, the Swahili names for days of the week reflect the influence of Arabic and Islam. Saturday is the "first day" while Thursday and Friday (the Moslem holy day) mark the end of the week.
In casual speech, people will often refer to the months of the year by their number. For example, "I will go away during the third month" indicates the speaker will go away during the month of March. When writing dates people will usually use month names which have been adopted from the English. Examples of both types of month names are given below.
Click on the underlined text to hear the phrase in Swahili: