Why Have an Amharic Phrasebook?

 

I just bought an Amharic phrasebook/dictionary…it's the only one currently available in the country in English, mind you.   My first clue that this was the most ghetto book I have ever owned was when I realized that some of the pages needed to be cut apart!!  So now any time I read it, I have scissors easily accessible.  

Today was the first day that I seriously sat down to study since buying the book over the weekend.  I had flipped through it before and saw that half of it was a dictionary, leaving about 150 pages for language acquisition tips.   Well, guess what!!  There are no verbs in that section! There are phrases that have verbs in them, but absolutely no instruction for how to conjugate verbs (which is fairly complicated, from what I've learned thus far – 4 different forms for "you"!)   How are you supposed to learn a language without verbs, please tell me! 

Ok, now for the part that made me laugh out loud…keep in mind that this book was printed in 2006. 

First…in the introduction there is a page that is titled "Why have an Amharic Phrasebook?"   And then it gives about 10 reasons…here are the best ones (verbatim): 

• If you believe Rastafarianism is your religion or philosophy then learning Amharic is just part of that way of life.  
• Learning the local language of the place you're traveling to, Amharic in our case, is amazingly fun and adventurous!

The book is then divided into topics useful to the traveler, such as going to a restaurant, shopping, etc.  Before each topic is a little quote (in English) to introduce the next section.  Here is a sampling of those: 

• Time is up the essence – introducing fractions of time
• Best vitamin for a fruit-eater is B1!
• What does it take to be Lance Armstrong? – for the sports section
• Hair you are! – oh yes, they even have hair care in here!
• I so don't need this right now! – can you guess what this would be a quote for?   It's for telling your pain. 
• Pretty body going down the street… -- Body parts

Ok, for body parts, they list some interesting ones, such as urine, whitehair (I can't make this stuff up! –the word is sibat) and lower tip…what is the lower tip?? It's listed after tongue, but why in the world would you give a name to the tip of your tongue??  

That's where I stopped.  Hopefully you'll get as much enjoyment out of this as I have, but it would be better if you could read it for yourselves.   It was certainly worth the 50 birr ($6) purely for the entertainment value.  Not sure how far I'll get in learning Amharic with it, though.