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Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2014-06-26, 17:50
by księżycowy
And just for clarity:
Eibhlín wrote:I can convert the texts in the first volume (FSI Amharic Basic Course) into Ge'ez script ;)

The readings in Volume 2 are the dialogues and narratives in Amharic script, so there's hardly any need.

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2014-06-27, 13:54
by Babelfish
Eibhlín wrote:ጥሩ የሰዋሰው መጽሐፍ ያውቃሉ?

I'm curious, is there a reason you wrote ያውቃሉ, i.e. "he knows"? Why 3rd person?

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2014-06-27, 15:08
by Multiturquoise
Babelfish wrote:
Eibhlín wrote:ጥሩ የሰዋሰው መጽሐፍ ያውቃሉ?

I'm curious, is there a reason you wrote ያውቃሉ, i.e. "he knows"? Why 3rd person?


You must be confusing it with ያውቃል (yawqal). What I wrote was "yawqallu".

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2014-06-27, 20:37
by Babelfish
Indeed I was confusing it. I think that being used to unvocalized Hebrew and Arabic, I tend to miss the Ethiopic vowel marks... so, ያውቃሉ as in 3rd person plural OR 2nd person respectful?

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2014-06-27, 22:41
by Multiturquoise
Babelfish wrote:Indeed I was confusing it. I think that being used to unvocalized Hebrew and Arabic, I tend to miss the Ethiopic vowel marks... so, ያውቃሉ as in 3rd person plural OR 2nd person respectful?


Both. But I used it as 2nd person respectful.

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2015-03-01, 22:08
by amarina
For anyone wanting to learn Amharic, I'm working on a website which you can try out if you'd like: http://adamyoung1997.wix.com/learnamharic

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2015-03-06, 21:51
by Babelfish
Nice! I probably already know what it includes currently, but it's nice to see it in Fidel as well (I originally learnt from a bunch of lessons I had found on the Internet, which only had transliteration). It would also be useful for me as a reference. Looking forward to more lessons!

Amharic

Posted: 2015-08-25, 23:28
by ethiolove
Is there anyone who is willing to help teach me Amharic maybe a native speaker

Re: Amharic

Posted: 2015-08-26, 11:39
by Multiturquoise
I know little Amharic, and I don't think there is any active native speaker or even advanced speaker at the moment. No one replied on most threads which I have opened about Amharic.

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2017-03-07, 4:16
by vijayjohn
Tadiyass everyone! I've decided to finally start posting on the Amharic-related threads on this forum and learning Amharic beyond a few words/phrases. For anyone who didn't already know, one of my parents' friends is Ethiopian (though married to a Malayalee), and all her kids know Amharic (including reading and writing) and have been to Amharic school on top of the usual schools people here go to. I'm also learning fidel, but it's taking some time. I keep testing how much I can read by just looking at the Lonely Planet phrasebook for Amharic and covering up the Romanization while reading phrases written out in fidel. There are some characters I never fail to recognize but also a bunch of others I can't figure out or remember. Does anybody have any tips about learning fidel? If you can read it, how did you go about learning it?

Amësëginallō and I look forward to learning more! :)

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2017-03-09, 5:59
by vijayjohn
OK, learning the Amharic alphabet seems to be getting easier than I thought it would be! I seem to be getting better by the day at reading things in it.

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2017-09-29, 6:24
by vijayjohn
My dad had bought me Colloquial Amharic as a birthday present, so I've started working through Chapter 1. The audio files are all available from Colloquial's website these days. :) God I hope they don't ever take those down I just read through the second dialog. Fidel is still hard for me to read, though!

Also, I'm starting to wonder about what some specific examples of influence from neighboring languages might be. Even the ejectives: where did those come from exactly?

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2017-09-29, 15:45
by księżycowy
vijayjohn wrote:God I hope they don't ever take those down

You and me both, brother.

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2017-09-29, 16:20
by vijayjohn
księżycowy wrote:
vijayjohn wrote:God I hope they don't ever take those down

You and me both, brother.

Right? Where would all our listening practice for Amharic go?

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2017-09-29, 16:23
by księżycowy
I meant in general, but yes. Definately for Amharic!

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2017-09-29, 16:33
by vijayjohn
Oh, that's true, in general as well. (I say that while studying Amharic from that book even though I haven't actually used it in a while, though :P).

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2018-01-27, 21:19
by semiticlearner
vijayjohn wrote:Oh, that's true, in general as well. (I say that while studying Amharic from that book even though I haven't actually used it in a while, though :P).


Still learning Amharic, if so how is it going? Some users earlier in the thread said some parts are very difficult, but I can recommend some resources :)

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2018-01-28, 15:51
by semiticlearner
vijayjohn wrote:My dad had bought me Colloquial Amharic as a birthday present, so I've started working through Chapter 1. The audio files are all available from Colloquial's website these days. :) God I hope they don't ever take those down I just read through the second dialog. Fidel is still hard for me to read, though!

Also, I'm starting to wonder about what some specific examples of influence from neighboring languages might be. Even the ejectives: where did those come from exactly?


From the research I've done in the past ጰ is found in words of Greek origin, and ፐ from words of Italian/English/(and I think Greek) origin.

I don't think the other ejectives were from the influence of neighbouring languages apart from ጨ (i think)? There's confusion as to how q, ṣ, ṭ, ẓ and ḑ were pronounced in Sabaean too, whether they were ejectives like Amharic, Tigrinya etc. or pharyngealised.

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2018-02-01, 1:43
by vijayjohn
Yep, I'm still learning it! It's going pretty slowly but steadily enough IMO, especially given that I'm studying about 24 other languages at the same time. :whistle: I think there must be some reason why only the Ethiopic languages seem to have ejectives whereas all the other Semitic languages apparently have pharyngeals.

Re: Amharic አማርኛ

Posted: 2018-02-10, 17:29
by semiticlearner
vijayjohn wrote:Yep, I'm still learning it! It's going pretty slowly but steadily enough IMO, especially given that I'm studying about 24 other languages at the same time. :whistle: I think there must be some reason why only the Ethiopic languages seem to have ejectives whereas all the other Semitic languages apparently have pharyngeals.


May be neighbouring language influences or it could have developed in that area (and possibly South Arabia too).

What are you finding easy and hard in Amharic so far? Most say ejectives are hard although I don't think that's the case :lol: