ARENGWADE, BICHA

This is the name of a popular game in Ethiopia. It means Green  yellow. And is an easy game to play with the children.

You will need some chairs and a group of children. Normally is necessary a chair less than the children number. The master of the game say "agengwade, arengwade..." and the children have to walk or run around the chairs following the rhythm of the words. The master some times say "bicha" and the children have to sit. One of them will not have place because there is a chair less and he is eliminated. After you have to take away another chair and start again. The winner is  the last child that get the last chair.

I hope you enjoy it!

THE COLORS OF THE LIFE

Let's continue with the words in Amharic. I think that can be useful to know the colors because they are easy words to learn and they have a clear image behind. Is easy to learn and to teach and it can be useful also to play games.

KAY                      red
SEMAYAWI         blue
BICHA                  yelow
ARANGWADE     green
GRACHA              grey
WEIN TECH         purple
ROSE                    pink
BUNNI                 brown
BIRTUKANEMA orange

Have a nice time learning the colors!!

USEFUL ADJECTIVES

Often is useful to know some adjective to speak about the things, the food, the daily things... so let me tell you some other useful words in Amharic that can help you to communicate with your children or simply to allow them to keep something of their birth language.

ADJECTIVE      MEANING
Konjo                 beautiful / handsome
Askeyamee         ugly
Arif                     cool
Teru                    good
Betam teru           very good
Metfo                  bad
Tefach                 tasty
Debbary              boring
Redjem                long
Acher                  short
Wofram               fat
Kechen                thin
Defar                   bold
Ferri                    coward
Koshasha             dirty
netsuh                  clean
Addis                   new
Eroghe                 old
Tinish                   small
Telek                    big

STORY OF TOTIT

Totit is the monkey, a great character in the Ethiopian tale tradition. Normally is  a smart animal and the role she play is theone that make troubles or the one that trick the others.

TOTIT AND THE OTHER ANIMALS

One day Totit was bored and started to think what to do. She was near a house of a man and entered there. She looked around and she saw a bag of berberry (a hot spice in powder) and after a short while an idea came to her. She stole the bag and run away to her home.

The next day she woke up early and she go to a field where the animals use to eat grass. She distributed all the berberry on the grass and finally there was no place without berberry.

When the sun rises the animals start to come and to eat grass. After a short while some of them started to jump crazily. And all of them run to the river to drink water. The animals started to fight to be the first to drink water. Totit was hided on a tree and seeing this started to laugh and laugh. The animals listened her and understood that everything was the Totit trick and back to their houses. Totit that day was so happy and she laugh a lot up to the moment she sleep...



Another day I'll continue the stories of Totit... not always she is the winner!

BATTLE OF ADWA

This battle is very important for the Ethiopian History. It happen in 1st March 1896. At that time most of African countries were under colonialism and Italians were trying to make Ethiopia part of their country.

Everything started with a trick. There was an agreement between Menelik II and the Italian kingdom called yewuchale sememmenet in the Italian version and in the Amharic one there was a great difference, in the Amharic it was saying that Ethiopia could use the Italian advice in the foreign affairs and in the Italian one instead was saying that Ethiopia have to manage the Foreign affairs through Italy. Italia wanted to get their version of the agreement and because of that they decide to make a military solution to make Ethiopia their protectorate.

The main purpose of Emperor Menelik was to keep the independence of Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian army was having old fashion arms and were week because many other reasons like a recent famine and shortage in the country, but they get the victory of the battle that finished in the treatment of Addis Abeba where Italy recognize the Ethiopian independence.

This part of the history make proud us of ourselves.

TO LEARN AMHARIC

Someone was asking me to upload soundtracks or videos for the words I try to teach. There is a web site were you can find interesting things about Amharic, probably also the sound tracks:

http://www.amharicdictionary.com/

Try it!

DAILY WORDS TO START

As I promise I'll continue time to time to teach some words that can be useful specially in the first days of adoption and also to keep something of the language of the birth country of your children.

The words I propose today are simple words for the daily life that can be used if the child is over one year:

WORD                MEANING
dehna neh?          are you fine (for boy)
dehna nesh?        are you fine (for girl)
dehna nachiw       are you fine (for plural)

na                       come (boy)
ney                      come (girl)
heed                    go ( boy)
hiji                       Go (girl)
tekemet              sit down (boy)
tekemechi           sit down (girl)
bela                    eat (boy)
bey                     eat (girl)
setegn                 give me (boy)
sechign               give me ( girl)
enka                   take it ( boy)
enki                    take it ( girl)

yecarta               excuse me
amesegenalew    thank you
aznalew              I'm sorry

I hope sincerely you can use some of the words with your children in the daily life even if they are so few!