Pronunciation

This unit introduces the pronunciation of Zarma vowels and consonants. Zarma uses a Latin-based alphabet, and most sounds will be familiar to English speakers, with a few important differences to practice early on.

Vowels

Letter	Sound	Example
a	”ah” as in “father”
e	”ey” as in “obey”
ay	”ay” as in “mine”
i	sometimes as in “big”, sometimes as in “machine”
o	as in “bone”
u	”oo” as in “food”

Consonants

Most Zarma consonants are pronounced the same as in English: b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, t, w, y, z.

The following consonants require special attention:

Letter	Sound	Notes
g	always hard, as in “goose”	Never soft as in “gem”
n	sometimes has an “ng” sound	For example, han is pronounced “hang”
r	rolled, as in Italian
s	always as in “say”	Never voiced as in “please”
c	somewhat like “ch” as in “church”
j	somewhat like English “j” as in “jug”