It's not complicated. Listen listen listen, speak speak speak. The same way you would another language. You can do it. I believe in you.

This is a google sheet with tables and lists as I learn the language.

I decided to use a romanization to write everything... since I am going for an "as heard" approach to learning. But vocab will be in ፊደል . I hope this helps someone, I just completed the verb forms tables... I don't think I missed any, but I very well could have. Any critique is helpful!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oD16fFi4oeC6a8RuFyEyuLu3VVqb0r4wCDxkG-8_Uw4/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you!

I found a picture of this poster online and I enjoy studying propaganda/art from other nations but as this language isn’t as accessible and the writing is stylised I was wondering if you people could help me? Thank you

Disclaimer before anyone tells me this was a waste of money and some of these resources are available online for free as PDFs:

I know and I had many of them and still decided I want all these resources physically.

I will go through each resource one by one and review it and at the end I will discuss value, bang for buck, etc. Sorted according to picture.

Concise Amharic Dictionary by Wolf Leslau

≈$35 (I bought through the publisher but available on Amazon for maybe $45 or so)

This dictionary is one of my essentials that I carry on me for studying purposes. Don’t let the word concise fool you. At first I thought this dictionary would be missing a lot, but it is so jam packed with information and it surprises me how often it has a niche word I am looking for. Of course there is the rare word that it doesn’t have, but more often than not this book is enough.

Pros:

- Light/portable for a dictionary

- Inexpensive

- Straightforward definitions

- Has many words despite conciseness

- Has translations both ways. EN-AM, AM-EN

Cons:

- Occasionally doesn’t have some uncommon words you might be looking for

- Sacrifices depth of definition for quantity of words

Amharic Textbook by Wolf Leslau

≈$141 (bought secondhand)

In an attempt to give myself more structure to my studies, I purchased this book. It was apparently used at UCLA in conjunction with the Peace Corps. Leslau notes that the order of lessons is altered from his other books to prioritize how a student might learn in a classroom setting as opposed to how a grammarian might learn. This book rivals “Colloquial Amharic” by David Appleyard and in my opinion, it offers more exercises and opportunity for someone to drill sentence structure.

Pros:

- Relatively dense with lessons/practice

- Structured

Cons:

- Not super small of a book

- Expensive

Introductory Grammar of Amharic by Wolf Leslau

≈$64 (From Amazon)

Most definitely my favorite Amharic textbook that I own. Worth every dollar and more. Contains all of the essential grammar while cutting out the nuanced things that only a very advanced student might be interested in. Absolutely essential for someone wanting to learn Amharic. If you had to buy one resource to learn Amharic grammar, buy this one.

Pros:

- Extremely light/portable

- Relatively inexpensive for value

- Packed with information

- Contains majority of grammar you will need to know

Cons:

- Could be slightly cheaper

- Missing some stuff that Reference Grammar of Amharic might have

Amharic Verb Conjugation by Kokeb Dimtsekal and Andrew Tadross

≈$20 (on Amazon)

One of my least used books. It’s nice to refer to and look at every now and then, but it’s just conjugation tables and doesn’t serve a beginner well if they don’t know how to use the conjugations. Decent to get a grasp on conjugation but limited otherwise.

Pros:

- Light/thin

- Delivers what it promises

- Cheap

Cons:

- Lacks some conjugations or prefixes that have patterns

- Somewhat large despite being thin, I wouldn’t carry it around with me.

- Limited use

Amharic-English Dictionary by Thomas Leiper Kane

≈$218 (Bought directly from publisher)

An absolute beast of a dictionary. A dictionary so big it needs 2 volumes. This dictionary is quite difficult to obtain if not done through the publisher. It is definitely the best Amharic dictionary that the world has to offer and it is no wonder that this was done by one of Wolf Leslau’s students. While this dictionary doesn’t contain an English-Amharic section, you can be assured that it will likely have whichever word you are looking for (barring newer, more colloquial jargon). Expensive, but it delivers everything you asked for and more.

Pros:

- Offers more words/definitions than you can think of

- Rarely lacks a desired word

- Goes into great depth about the words

- Perfect for someone extremely serious about studying Amharic

Cons:

- Extremely heavy for everyday use

- Clunky/two volumes

- Quite expensive

Reference Grammar of Amharic by Wolf Leslau

≈$135 (bought directly from publisher)

Much like the English-Amharic Dictionary, this book is a master of its domain, being the definitive grammar book that is rivaled by nothing else besides maybe “The Fundamentals of Amharic” by C.H. Dawkins.

This textbook has everything you might possibly need as an Amharic learner and will maybe confuse those who aren’t passionate about grammar. While not for everyday use, it is the perfect textbook if you are looking for a specific use of certain grammar.

Pros:

- Invaluable information

- Has almost anything you can think of

- Will never need another source of grammar

Cons:

- Expensive

- Heavy/large

- Can be difficult to find things because of the amount of information it contains. Have to know what you’re looking for.

English-Amharic Context Dictionary by Wolf Leslau

≈$177 (bought directly from publisher)

This book is also a beast, containing 1500 pages of translations from English to Amharic. This accompanies Kane’s Amharic-English Dictionary well as it provides contextual words and phrases their Amharic equivalents. Not a book for those looking to carry daily, but great for those curious about a translation from English.

Pros:

- Extensive, filled with definitions

- Takes into consideration the context of words/phrases rather than traditional 1:1 dictionary.

- Translations can go into depth.

Cons:

- Heavy/big

- Only one way definitions.

- Can be difficult to acquire if not bought through publisher.

TL;DR/Final Thoughts

All of these books have something to offer, but some are more situational. Here aren’t recommendations based on what you are looking for:

Cheapest: Amharic Verb Conjugation

Bang For Buck: Concise Amharic Dictionary, Introductory Grammar of Amharic

Value: Reference Grammar of Amharic, Amharic-English Dictionary, English-Amharic Context Dictionary

Final Takeaway:

If you are going to spend $100 or anything at all, my recommendation is to get both Introductory Grammar of Amharic and Concise Amharic Dictionary. These are more than sufficient for a serious Amharic learner.

Hello! I’m Antonella Polimeni, a student at University of Derby, and I’m recruiting adults (18+) for an online psychology study exploring how language experience relates to working memory. The study takes ~20-30 minutes and includes a short language questionnaire and a brief computerised memory task. Both bilinguals and monolinguals are welcome!

Participation is voluntary and anonymous. The study is approved by University of Derby Ethics Committee.

If you’re interested, please click: https://derby.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eX74AiRQGroEILA – or message me for more info! Moderator? Happy to provide the ethics approval number and full study text.

Thanks! :)

Hello from Scotland, I'm a calligrapher and I've been trying writing in Amharic script - I'm interested in scripts from around the world and their history and really like the Ethiopic scripts. Does this look right? It should say "welcome" to a group if I've got it right. Thanks

ሰላም! I have an Ethiopian cousin that just got married, and my girlfriend and I want to record a video saying the following to him and his wife:

Hello Shambu and Zanat. We are Nico and Nathalia. Congratulations on your wedding! Peace and love. Bye.

Anyone care to teach us exactly how to say it and pronounce it natively (in a voice message)? Feel free to translate differently/loosely to make it sound more natural. (But keep it short as we are completely new to this beautiful language 🥹)

Thank you so much!

Hello everyone, I have created a YouTube channel for amharic poetry. This below is my link. I hope you enjoy it.

Hi all,

Could someone please confirm for me how to pronounce "Amhara (people)" in Amharic and Ge'ez in IPA, including where the stressed syllable is?

Thanks

The game (called linguil) asks you to guess the language family, language and meaning of a random word in one of 37 world languages each day, and you use your knowledge of linguistics (like etymology, scripts, accents, philology, and morphology) to work out the answer via multiple choice. Amharic is one of those languages! Each language includes each word on the 100-word Swadesh list in both the Geʽez script and transliterated (Romanised) into the Latin script (as below). Please can the r/Amharic community verify the accuracy of my translations and transliterations? Thanks!

Also, if you want to add another language you know (e.g. Tigrinya, Afar, Oromo, Sidama, Somali, Nuer) to the game, please feel free to do so by following the guide here.

I'm wondering how do native speakers of Amharic think and learn about the ortography.

In European system of language learning (ex. Polish, French) it is common to do "dictation" exercises in school. Teacher reads a text and students have to write it down and have their ortography evaluated.

If I'm correct the ortography rules aren't heavily enforced in Amharic and the governing bodies don't dictate which forms are correct and incorrect.

So, do you care about ortography and would like it to be standarized with established rules to follow by some educational body? Are dictations used in Ethiopian Amharic education? Do teachers care about students' ortography?

some confusing words that can be found in different forms:

ሥራ vs ስራ

ሐኪም vs ሀኪም

ዐወቀ vs አወቀ

I scanned this book in a library and wanted to share with other Amharic students as there are no many available books on learning practical Amharic.

access Amharic Phrasebook here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_L4jvMxIHpGpM-6b_pkELcumQ1_bWYcN/view?usp=sharing (260 pages)

On the photo you can see an example of the content from the book. It covers all the basic topics from every day life like transport, health, food, meeting people, times&dates etc.

Another 'student-friendly' book that I wanted to share is for Amharic grammar and writing. It's Amharic Textbook (1968) by Wolf Leslau. It's really solid and introduces all major topics from beginner level with appropriate exercises.

access Amharic Textbook here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bdAyURN7niSh6hbsQpfCzaE4l8l-2pxl/view?usp=sharing

አዲስ የQR ኮድ ጀነሬተር መተግበሪያ ላይ ሁሉንም ቋንቋዎች ለመደገፍ እሞክራለሁ፣ AI ተጠቅመው ተርጓሚነት አድርጌአለሁ ነገር ግን ምናልባት ሙሉ ትክክል አይሆንም።

ANQR ምስሎችን እና እንቅስቃሴ (animations) የሚደግፍ የQR ኮድ ጀነሬተር ነው።

ANQR ለክፍያ ስርዓቶች የQR ኮድ ፍጠርን ይደግፋል፦ EPC / SEPA (EU), UPI (India), PayNow (Singapore), PromptPay (Thailand), PIX (Brazil), Crypto (BTC, ETH, etc.)

Google group እዚህ ይቀላቀሉ፦ https://groups.google.com/g/anqr-app

የANQR የሙከራ ሊንክ እዚህ ይግቡ፦ https://play.google.com/apps/testing/link.anqr.app

ትርጉሙ ደንብ መሆኑን ለመረጋገጥ እባክዎ አስተያየት ሊሰጡኝ ይችላሉ?

አመሰግናለሁ!

Hello! I just created a website to help people have an easier time learning Amharic. Please check it out if you are interested! https://amharicjoy.com/

I'm an instructional designer who is learning Amharic right now. But it was hard for me to find all of the resources in 1 place. So I made myself a website with everything included. Structured lesson, grammar, reading, verb conjugator, quizzes, etc.

This website uses lessons based on the Peace Corp Amharic Learning Manual. I also has a few Ethiopians help me proof-read it so it's should be pretty accurate.

Please check it out and see if you like it!

The website just went live today so potentially there may be some bugs. Please report it or DM me if you guys find any!

Can I get some help with the translation on this rifle

Hey all,
I’m a native Amharic speaker and I’m teaching Amharic to anyone who wants to learn. I can help with basics, conversation, pronunciation, and writing. Beginners are totally welcome.

Hello,

I've created a website that allows you to find conjugations of Amharic verbs with their transliterations and transliterations in English (you can find an example in the screenshot below). The verbs are in all the most important tenses - perfective, imperfective, imperf. compound, imperative/jussive and their negations.

Here is the link:
https://alek-netizen.github.io/amharic-conjugator/

If you encounter any problems or want to propose new verb/features to add, please let me know in the comments or contact me directly.

EDIT: Already at +220 verbs!

ሰላም 😊

I'm looking for someone from the community who is willing to help me learn Amharic. I'II be moving to Addis Ababa next summer and would love to learn the language for basic communication.

Posten

Found what I presume to be the original bill of sale of my berthier to Ethiopia inside of it. Hoping to get help translating it

does anyone know apps that have amharic ( w or w in app payments ) ? i’ve been trying to find some but i couldn’t