This page features

• Appleyard, David – Colloquial Amharic published by Routledge
• Lonely Planet phrasebook Ethiopian Amharic
• My First Book of Amharic Words

 

David Appleyard, Colloquial Amharic

This book is a key resource for serious students of learning Amharic language. David Appleyard’s book “Colloquial Amharic” has been published since 1995 and is highly recommended and used by many universities including the SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) at the University of London. The new, revised second edition is published 2013 by Routledge. Appleyard says it incorporates many comments from students, teachers and reviewers.

This book is for someone who wants to get to grips with learning modern Amharic in some depth, teaching good knowledge of Ge’ez script and grammar. Appleyard says: “By the end of this course you should be able to carry on a reasonable conversation on most everyday topics, express yourself in writing and read simple Amharic.” He warns that reading novels or magazine articles without difficulty might take a few years – “Amharic is a rich and often complex language”. Each unit has dialogues and texts, it’s very interactive and there is also an audio CD, which is a separate purchase.

We highly recommend this thorough and enlightening book to our students who want to learn Amharic in London as supporting material to our lively and inspiring teacher and classes.

Lonely Planet phrasebook Ethiopian Amharic with comprehensive dictionary

This really is pocket size but feels very durable and is packed with useful language. Published by Lonely Planet in Australia and written by Tilahun Kebede, Catherine Snow and Daniel Aberra. It is divided into very useful sections, featuring: brief introduction to the script and to grammar, sentence structure, questions and so on; meeting people and greetings; getting around; accommodation; going out; shopping; food; activities; health issues and at the doctor and many other useful conversations with the phrases very easy to find. It gives an transliteration in Latin letters as well as the phrases written in feedel so that you can show it to the person you are talking to if they can’t understand your pronounciation! One great feature of these phrasebooks is the small bits of useful commentary on topics such as body languge, tips on buses, taxis and hotels, and many other useful traveller tips. A great buy at a bargain price of £4.99.

You can buy it from the publishers here or even cheaper via Amazon using our link below.

My First Book of Amharic Words

A fun and educational children’s book for building vocabulary and developing early language skills. It contains over 400 English and Amharic essential words used at home, school and everyday life and the colourful illustrations keep children interested and engaged.

Each word is presented in Amharic with English translation and phonetic form of the words. This is the second edition, easier for children who are still learning feedel.

You can buy “My First Book of Amharic Words” from Amazon here (affiliate link) or from the charity Link Ethiopia here. Link Ethiopia is dedicated to changing lives through education in Ethiopia and increasing cultural awareness between young people in Ethiopia and the UK .

Fitsame Teferra Woldemichael is a children’s author. The book is published by Habte Books and has 40 pages. It is also available in German on Amazon.