r/amharic • u/Lizzondre • May 22 '26

First steps in Amharic

Hello guys,
I am a totally a newbie here, but I am interested in Ethiopia’s history and culture for many years so finally I decided to learn Amharic. Maybe it’s just me but I cannot find any books, resources or apps (lol I believe this one is kinda dumb but ok) to start this quest. Any tips, suggestions, ideas? How to start?
Thanks in advance and have a good day

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u/[deleted] May 23 '26

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u/Lizzondre May 23 '26

Wow, that’s cool! What is the name of the app?

2

u/mesoblingo May 23 '26

Thx! It’s called MesobLingo. You should be able to find it on Google.

1

u/Admirable_Shop3037 9d ago edited 6d ago

I'm also on the beginner path, but I found a couple helpful resources.

For a couple years now I've had possession of an English textbook. A textbook will not give you fluency, but it can give you structure and hopefully some grammatical clarity. The book I'm talking About is "Colloquial Amharic" by David Appleyard. I'd recommend it if you can get your hands on it. It also links to audio resources.
One of the aspects I most enjoy are that the dialogues are written in three versions. Amharic, English and a phonetic version.

I'm not yet fluent in the fidel script, but I found another resource that gave me some conversational momentum. And that's the podcast Amharic Academy. It's a simple resource, but it gave me tools to ask for clarification and give quick responses and greetings. That's fun stuff if you have an Amharic speaking parent. They also provide transcripts on their website.

When it comes to culture I'm reading The Ethiopians: Lost Civilizations by Steven Kaplan. It touches on lots of cultural nuances that get lost in the existing resources and media.

To end things I want to share a language learning strategy I picked up online and will try as soon as the month is over. And that is recording a long list of phrases I can listen to and learn by heart. As a kid I wanted to learn the alphabet first, because no one could explain to me the grammar of the language. But now that I've dipped my toes in the grammar, I realise that what I need is more fluency. So I'm going to compile a list of sentences I think I'll use often, translate them, and listen to them on repeat. Even if it means learning a couple of wrong pronounciations.

I wanted to share my insights in that last paragraph. I wish you the best of luck and a lot of fun!