Learn Wolof Through Topics You Actually Care About

LingoBear creates short Wolof passages on topics you choose. Tap any word for an instant English translation and build your vocabulary as you read. Niger-Congo (Senegambian) language, lingua franca of Senegal, written in a Latin orthography (since 1971) and the older Wolofal Arabic script, ~12M speakers including L2.

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Every word in your Wolof reading passage is clickable. Get English translations and grammar help — useful for parsing Wolof's focus markers and noun classes.

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Type any topic and LingoBear generates a fresh Wolof reading passage — from Mouride brotherhoods to Dakar music.

What is Wolof and where is it spoken?

Wolof is the lingua franca of Senegal — official Senegalese, despite French being the country's administrative language. It is also widely spoken in Gambia and Mauritania. Estimates put native speakers at around 5 million and total speakers including L2 at around 12 million. The Senegalese government adopted a Latin orthography for Wolof in 1971; the older Arabic-based Wolofal is still used in religious texts.

What grammar features does Wolof have?

Wolof has SVO word order, no grammatical gender, and a system of around 10 noun classes (a, b, g, j, k, l, m, n, s, w) that show agreement on demonstratives and determiners (xale bi 'the child' from class b, kër gi 'the house' from class g). Verbal focus markers (la, na, dafa) highlight different parts of the sentence. It has no verb conjugation by tense; aspect is shown by particles.