Close friends of my family, just came back last week from Ethiopia, with a new little girl. She is five years old, and her name is Kebba.
Already I have been over multiple times to visit (since I will be babysitting a lot, she should probably get used to me...) and I realised today when my whole family was over, just how little Amharic (the language that she speaks) I know. She is quickly learning English, but I think it must be nice to hear Amharic once in a while, even though it is only snippets of words, and with a bad accent...
So I went home, found an online Amharic dictionary, and started figuring out some helpful words!
Just in case you ever want to speak any Amharic, I listed those words below, with the pronunciations spelt out phonetically.
Hello - Selam
Goodbye - Chow
Thank You - Ama-siga-na-low
Mom - Amama
Dad - Ababa
Sister - Ah-hyut
Yes - Ah-ow (Sounds more like Ow)
No - Aye
Bathroom - Shinty-Baht
Please - Ih-Bah-Kesh
Excuse Me - yeh-Kerta
Maybe - men-al-bat
Right (Correct) - lick-a-naw
Wrong - lick-ay-dal-alm
Danger - Ah-da-gan-ya
OK - ishee
Stop - koom
Good Job - Go-Behz
How are you? - in-Dem-in-nesh
Bedroom - mehn-yah-tah-bayt
Stop it - tey
Nose (I knew this one already :) ) - ah-fin-cha
Something interesting I learned was that "Baht" means room. So really, "bathroom" or "shinty baht" is really "pee room" because "shinty" means "pee"
Interesting how other languages work, isn't it? I wish I could pick languages up quickly, because Kebba chatters so much that it would be easy to learn if I could! :P
Kebba AKA "wair -AYN-yah" AKA Chatterbox.
Are you fluent in a second (or more) language? Which do you want to be fluent in?
