Common Phrases in Amharic

The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.

Brian Herbert

Hello Everyone! Welcome to the third part of the Learn Amharic series. Today’s lesson is simple as we are just talking about some common phrases, such as Good Morning and Good Afternoon.  I will be using a blue color to highlight the male version and purple color for the female version. Phrases that don’t have a male and female version will be in a regular font and color. As always, refer to the video to learn how to pronounce these words and phrases.

Good Morning

Good Afternoon

Good Evening

Good Night

Luck is called  እድል(edel)

Birthday is called ልደት(ledet)

New is አዲስ(adis) and year is ዓመት(amet)

So are you seeing a pattern with the holidays? Whenever you want to wish someone a happy holiday, all you need to do is add Melkam, which doesn’t directly translate to happy, but when it is put before a holiday, it will translate to happy and add the holiday name. It’s that simple! Let us practice a little bit with this concept. First, I will give the names of two popular holidays celebrated in Ethiopia.

Now you must be wondering why I stopped with those two? The reason is that holidays such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s day, etc. are not celebrated in Ethiopia. For those holidays, just use their English names. We will talk about holidays in Ethiopia in another lesson. So now I have given you all the names for the holidays. I want us to practice creating a simple phrase wishing someone a happy holiday!

HOW WOULD YOU SAY THESE PHRASES IN AMHARIC?

1. Happy Halloween
2. Merry Christmas
3.  Happy Valentine’s day
4.  Good day!

Answers

1. Melkam Halloween
2.  Melkam Gena
3. Melkam Valentine’s day
4. Melkam ken

Video

Practice

And that would be it for today’s lesson. Next week we will be discussing time. In preparation for the next class, please review numbers in Amharic.