Amharic words

So my post today is about words that we thought were very useful in Ethiopia !

Selamneh was teaching us a few words and then we would practice at night in our room Julie and I and then we would try to use them the next day.

Amharic is really hard to learn as it comes with different pronounciations that you don't know exist when you read the word on paper, plus sometimes you have to make the facial expressions.... Its really neat though to see Ethiopians talk to each other in Amharic. This is one of my favorite memories of our trip... We were so intrigue when Selamneh would start to talk Amharic with the children or with someone else !

Here are the words that we used and thought were invaluable.

"Ameseganalo"- THANK YOU (its pronounced A-me-se-ge-na-lo)

"Eishi" or "Owo" both means YES ( we used this often when someone was asking us questions)

"Taruno" - Very good (pronouced Ta-ru-no) we used this a lot with the children when they were showing us things they could do !

"Congo" - BEAUTIFUL (the G is pronounced like J in Jam) Funny story here...We were pronoucing the G as G for a while and everyone would laugh and we could not understand why... then someone said Congo is a place not an Amharic word... We had a pretty good laugh at this one right Julie ??) This specific instant happened when we were away from the group visiting my sponsor child with another program. We kept saying this to my sponsor child... oops... we had a good laugh but we were glad they corrected us as she did not seem to understand what we were telling her LOL

"Aznalo"- SORRY (pronouced as its spelled)

"Aye"- NO (pronouned as its spelled)

Sent no - HOW MUCH IS THIS? (used in markets or where you would like to buy something, however most places we went, they could speak english)

"Algo Banyum" - I DON'T UNDERSTAND (this came in handy a few times too)

"chow"- SEE YOU (this is the only way we could get the children to wave when we wanted to take video or a picture

"gobeez"- GOOD JOB (this was also fun to tell the kids when they were doing something good)

"Semech Manno"- WHAT IS YOUR NAME? (BOY). The CH is pronouced like a K
"Semesh Manno"- WHAT IS YOUR NAME? (GIRL). Pronounced as its spelled.
(The children all LOVED when we asked their names and they were all soo proud to tell us what their names were, they also love when you try to repeat their names... and I did say TRY !)

"Nah"- COME (also came in handy a few times)

"Selam"- HELLO (Also really useful)

"Denaneh" -HOW ARE YOU ?(BOY) pronounced De-na-neh
"Denanesh"- HOW ARE YOU ? (GIRL) pronoucned De-na-nesh

There is also a wonderful book that came in handy a few times (someone else on the trip had it). It had lots of information about Ethiopia, the culture, where to eat, stay and even a part on the language which is how we learned most of these words. I would highly recommend buying the lonerly planet Ethiopia before going to Ethiopia as it did come in handy a lot. Its like having the internet at the end of your fingertips while travelling.

Here is a link from amazon where the book can be bought. I will for sure have a copy when we return to Ethiopia.

http://www.amazon.ca/Lonely-Planet-Ethiopia-Eritrea-Phillips/dp/1741044367/ref=sr_1_1/702-3814775-0937605?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173361510&sr=8-1