Basic Words & Phrases
It's now time to learn some basic words and phrases in Amharic!
Key to abbreviations:
(m) = addressing a male, (f) = addressing a female, (frm) = formal, (inf) = informal,
(pl) = addressing more than 1 person
“Hello” & “How are you?”
Daytime-specific Phrases
Name & Age
Communication Phrases
General Phrases
“Goodbye”
There you have some basic words and phrases in Amharic. A few things to note:
¹ - እንዴት and እንደምን both mean ‘How?’ and are interchangeable
² - As a response to ‘ዕድሜህ/ዕድሜሽ/ዕድሜዎ ስንት ነው?’, you may also hear ‘... ዓመቴ ነው’. This is an informal response, however.
³ - Although the words አደራችሁ, ዋላችሁ, and አመሻችሁ end in the letter combination -ችሁ, this is pronounced -ቹህ. This is due to word stress, and is the case for all words ending directly in -ችሁ. Likewise, the -ሁ ending in አመሰግናለሁ is pronounced -ው. This is also the case for all words ending directly in -ሁ.
To practice these phrases, let's look at a dialogue: Bereket and Desta meet each other for the first time. See if you can understand what they say to each other. Note:
እቸኩላለሁ = I'm in a rush
መሄድ አለብኝ = I need to go
በረከት፦ ጤና ይስጥልኝ። በረከት እባላለሁ፣ ስምዎ ማን ነው?
Bereket: Hello. I'm Bereket, what's your name?
Desta: Good afternoon. My name is Desta. How are you?
ደስታ፦ እንደምን ዋሉ? ስሜ ደስታ ነው። እንዴት ነዎት?
በረከት፦ ደህና ነኝ፣ አመሰግናለሁ። እርስዎስ?
Bereket: I'm fine, thank you. How about you?
ደስታ፦ እኔም ደህና ነኝ። ዕድሜዎ ስንት ነው?
Desta: I'm fine, too. How old are you?
በረከት፦ ዕድሜዬ ሃያ ስምንት ነው። የእርስዎስ?
Bereket: I'm 28 years old. What about you?
ደስታ፦ ዕድሜዬ ሰላሳ አንድ ነው። ይቅርታ፣ እቸኩላለሁ፣ መሄድ አለብኝ።
Desta: I'm 31 years old. I'm sorry, I'm in a rush and need to leave.
በረከት፦ እሺ፣ ችግር የለውም። ደህና ይሁኑ።
Bereket: Ok, that's fine. Goodbye.
ደስታ፦ እርስዎም ደህና ይሁኑ። ስለተዋወቅን ደስ ብሎኛል።
Desta: Goodbye. It was nice to meet you.