Learn Somali online

free interactive course2,000 real sentences works on your phoneModerate for an English speaker, ~1,072 hrs

Somali is spoken by about 24 million people.

On our measured language map, its closest relatives are Fulani, Neapolitan and Piedmontese. If you speak one of those, much of the vocabulary will feel familiar from day one.

one sentence from the course
SomaliKaniwaagurigayga
EnglishThisismy house
split into its working pieces by the course itself, and paired with the English underneath. Tap a piece to light up what it pairs with. Every one of the 2,000 sentences works like this.
24 millionspeakers
2,000real sentences
1,506patterns discovered
~1,072hours from English
Try a Somali lesson now, free, no signup or create a free account

Real Somali sentences from the course

Nagu soo biir.
Join us.
Toos!
Wake up!
I cafi.
Forgive me.
Waan faraxsanahay.
I am happy.
Waan dabaalan karaa.
I can swim.

How the course works

Every lesson is built from 2,000 real Somali sentences, aligned with their translations word by word and piece by piece, so you always see how the sentence actually works instead of memorizing flashcards. The grammar is discovered from the sentences themselves, 1,506 patterns so far, and a spaced-repetition quiz teaches it in the order that unlocks the most of the language first. Our measured estimate for reaching conversational level from English is about 1,072 hours of study. Read how it works.

Learn Somali from your own language

Most apps only teach Somali through English, if they teach it at all. These starting languages already have a built course, and any other published language can be paired on request:

EnglishArabicDutchGerman

Related languages you can also learn

FulaniCroatianSerbianTamazight (Tifinagh)Old EnglishBelarusianDanish

Speaker figures follow Ethnologue and national censuses, rounded. The difficulty estimate is calibrated against U.S. Foreign Service Institute data.