Learn Fula from Native Speakers

Learn Basic Fula

The Fula Basics consists of forty numbered units, three review units, and a glossary. Each unit includes a dialogue or other basic sentences and variation drills on basic sentences including certain vocabulary. In addition, many units also contain grammar notes, drills on the grammar notes, narratives, and questions and topics for discussion.The course comes with 29 CD's and a 505 page textbook or 1 DVD with audio on MP3 and textbook on a PDF file.

Fula (variously also called, in European languages, Fulani, Peul, Poular, Toucouleur, Fulfulde) is the language of the Fulbe, cattle raising peoples of Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroun and adjacent areas in other states. The people are generally referred to by the term applied to their language.

In none of the countries where they live do the Fula people form a majority. The principal concentrations are in the Fouta Toro and adjacent areas of Senegal, Mali and Gabia, in the Fouta Diallon area around Labe in Guinea, and in the Northern Regions of Nigeria and adjacent parts of Niger and Cameroun. Smaller concentrations, primarily of cattle-herding Fulbe, occur allacross the Savannah areas of West Africa.

The Fulbe are predominantly Muslim. In Nigeria they have a relatively recent history of political hegemony over other tribes. Many important leaders in Guinea, Northern Region of Nigeria, and Federal Nigeria, are Fulbe.

The language is divisible into dialects on various bases. The principal dialects accord with the main concentrations of speakers, being the Fouta Diallon dialect of Guinea, the Senegambian dialects known to the French as Peul, the Fula of Massina in Mali, and the Eastern Fula dialects known generally as Fulani in Northern Nigeria, of which the speach of Adamawa is the best known.

The dialogue is taught in segments first, then as a whole. The steps involved are:

1. Listening

2. Memorizing by repetition of break-downs and whole sentences

3. Developing fluency by additional repetition of whole sentences

4. Participating by assuming one role in the dialogue,

5. Confirming comprehension by re-listing.

Unit 1 - Morning Greetings

Unit 2 - Afternoon Greetings

Unit 3 - Additional Morning Greetings

Unit 4 - Additional Afternoon Greetings

Unit 5 - Useful Classroom Expressions

Unit 6 - Reviw of Units 1 - 5

Unit 7 - A remedy for a headache

Unit 8 - Yompa's wife is sick

Unit 9 - An accident on the road

Unit 10 - Inquiring about a job

Unit 11 - Visitors

Unit 12 - What day will he be here?

Unit 13 - Livestock

Unit 14 - At the market

Unit 15 - Weather

Unit 16 - At the Butcher's

Unit 17 - Kumba's Child is Cold

Unit 18 - Fatu returns from the market

Unit 19 - Cooking fish

Unit 20 - Frank learns the value of money

Unit 21 - Koba, the okra salesman

Unit 22 - What's for lunch?

Unit 23 - A snack and an errand

Unit 24 - Lots to Do

Unit 25 - Qalfa does some chores

Unit 26 - Asking directions

Unit 27 - Frank's car has a Breakdown

Unit 28 - Kumba's baby was sick

Unit 29 - Frank is interested in farming

Unit 30 - Kumba's daughter is getting married

Unit 31 - Ramadan is coming

Unit 32 - Buying clothes

Unit 33 - A visit to the dispensary

Unit 34 - Going to the Bantanto Village

Unit 35 - The teacher misbehaves

Unit 36 - Frank does some vocabulary learning

Unit 37 - The case of the mistaken drunk driver

Unit 38 - Dgay wants to register his child in school

Unit 39 - News of Friends and family

Unit 40 - Renting a house