Learn Amharic

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uTalk Amharic App

Alternative to Duolingo or Babbel

The uTalk app teaches about 2000 Amharic words and focuses primarily on playful exercises. There are several exercises to choose from:

• Read and listen to Amharic words (with translation and photos)
• Match the Amharic word you heard to a photo
• Speak a Amharic word and compare the recording with the original
• A memory game with pictures
• Speak the Amharic translation of an English word

The vocabulary is divided into 60 freely selectable topics. The special thing about the uTalk app is that you get access to all 160 languages.

The interface of the app is well made and is similar to other apps like Babbel, Duolingo or Mondly.

Summary: Getting access to 160 languages is impressive and the scope (2000 words with native speaker audio and exercises) is also solid.

Link: uTalk Amharic Language Course App

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Amharic Basic Course

From 17 Minute Languages

Systems: Online Access (PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS)

Suitable for: Beginners and Advanced Learners, Students, Professionals

Content: 1300 words (basic course), 5200 words (complete course), grammar, verb conjugations, exercises

Prices: USD 29,95 (Basic Course), USD 97 (Complete Course)

Overall Value:

The Amharic Basic Course contains a vocabulary trainer for the basic Amharic vocabulary (1300 words) with native-speaker audio, as well as grammar explanations and various exercises.

The vocabulary trainer works with a long-term memory method, in which the new vocabulary is checked at increasing intervals.

You can choose between text input, multiple choice or simply confirming whether you knew a word or not.

The exercises include text comprehension questions, filling in word gaps or just vocabulary lists where one side is covered.

The basic course corresponds to the official language levels A1 and A2 (explanation of CEFR language levels).

The Complete Course contains:

• Basic course for beginners (basic vocabulary with 1300 words)
• Intermediate course (1800 more words)
• Advanced course for experts (2100 words)
• Additional specialized vocabulary
• Covers the official CEFR language levels A1 to C2

There are 17 different languages you can use to learn Amharic with this app.

Summary: Much cheaper and even better than the famous Rosetta Stone. There is a free demo version available and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Link: Amharic Basic Course and Complete Course

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Cudoo: Amharic Course

Online Learning with Certificates

Systems: Online Access (PC, Mac, smartphones)

Content: Amharic video lessons and quiz tests

Prices: USD 12.99 (one course), USD 24.99 (4-7 courses bundle)

Overall Value:

Cudoo is a kind of online university that offers courses with certificates on different topics.

This includes language courses for 160 languages. These are all beginner courses (CEFR level A1 and A2).

For each language there are 1-10 courses and each course has 20-40 lessons.

The lessons each include a short video with new vocabulary and there are short quiz questions below the video.

Summary: The videos are well made, so especially for smaller languages these courses are a good start.

Link: Cudoo Online Amharic Language Course

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Bluebird Amharic App

Amharic Lessons and Exercises

Systems: Android and iPhone apps, online version (PC and Mac)

Content: Amharic exercises with native speaker audio and speech recognition

Prices: USD 9.99 (1 month), USD 100 (12 months), USD 200 (unlimited), USD 400 (163 languages)

Overall Value:

The Bluebird App offers 146 source languages and 163 target languages and dialects, including Amharic.

The Amharic language course in this app includes the following:

• Daily video lessons in three difficulty levels
• Basic Amharic vocabulary on several dozen topics
• Common Amharic verbs with conjugations
• Analysis of your own pronunciation (with speech recognition)
• Tests: listening comprehension, filling in word gaps, vocabulary quizzes

There are about 500 video lessons for learning Amharic, each 5 to 60 minutes long. For languages with other scripts, the words can also be displayed transliterated in the Latin script.

The Bluebird app has no grammar lessons. Instead, you are supposed to understand the grammar "implicitly" from the examples, like in Rosetta Stone.

Summary: The video lessons and the interface take some getting used to, but the exercises are quite varied. Especially for smaller languages, this app is a viable alternative.

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Memrise Amharic App

App with User-Generated Lessons

Systems: Android App, iPhone App, Online-Version (PC and Mac)

Content: Amharic lessons and vocabulary trainer with native speaker audio, grammar

Prices: USD 8,99 (1 month), USD 60 (12 months), USD 110 (unlimited)

Overall Value:

With the Memrise App you can learn over 90 languages.

This includes even very small languages - however, in such cases the language courses are often limited to just a few lessons.

One special feature of the Memrise learning app is the large number of lessons created by users (native speakers).

The quality of these lessons varies greatly though. For example, only the basic forms of verbs are usually taught, without the conjugations. Some languages also do not have an audio recording of the words at all.

Another good idea of the Memrise app are the user-generated tips and mnemonics for each word to help you memorize them.

Summary: User-generated lessons are a good idea. In practice, the quality of the lessons leaves a lot be desired.

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Clozemaster Amharic

Exercises for Advanced Learners

Systems: Android and iOS Apps, Online Version

Suitable for: Intermediate and Advanced Learners

Content: Multiple-choice selection of missing words in sentences (with native speaker audio)

Prices: USD 8 (1 month), USD 60 (12 months), USD 140 (lifetime access)

Overall Value:

The Clozemaster app is intended for intermediate and advanced learners who have already mastered the basic vocabulary and want to practice.

The only exercise is to choose the correct missing word in a sentence from a list of four words. The translation of the sentence is displayed as well. At the end, the sentence is also spoken by a native speaker.

In the English version of this app there are 70 languages to choose from.

Large languages have up to 50,000 vocabulary items (words, phrases, and verb variations), while smaller languages often have only 500.

In the online version, you can also type in the missing words. The smartphone app now offers speech recognition.

Summary: An interesting method that is quite fun. Since many apps teach only at a beginner level, this is a good addition for advanced users.

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Lingo Amharic App

Playful Amharic Learning

Systems: Android and iPhone Apps, Online Version (PC and Mac)

Content: Amharic lessons and exercises

Prices: USD 19.99 (1 month), USD 40 (3 months), USD 60 (6 months)

Overall Value:

The Lingo Play App offers language courses for 70 languages. It offers "gamified learning", which means learning vocabulary in a playful way.

Each Amharic lesson offers the following exercises:

• Presentation of new words with translation and image
• Decide whether a Amharic word matches the image
• Select one of four pictures that matches a word
• Type in the Amharic word for a picture
• Correctly type in a spoken Amharic word

In the full version this app offers up to 5000 Amharic words. The interface of the app is similar to Babbel, Duolingo or Mondly.

There is also a multiplayer mode and competitions where you can test your Amharic skills against other people.

Summary: Overpriced Amharic course that does offer some good exercises, but is not better than other similar apps.

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Instant Immersion: Amharic

Learning Software for Download

Systems: PC and Mac

Suitable for: Beginners and intermediate learners, travel vocabulary, business

Content: Amharic vocabulary lessons and exercises

Prices: USD 35 (Level 1), USD 55 (Level 1-3)

Overall Value:

The Instant Immersion Amharic learning software is available for download only for PCs and Macs.

According to the vendor, this software is supposed to be "as good as Rosetta Stone", but much cheaper because less money is spent on advertising.

Unfortunately, this promise cannot hold.

The software interface is chaotic and all three "language levels" offer a chaotic mix of easy and difficult words.

Essentially, this software only introduces new Amharic vocabulary with native speaker audio and pictures, and then there are a few exercises.

Amharic grammar is not included at all.

Summary: Limited scope and bad interface. At least it is relatively cheap and there is a 90-day money-back guarantee.

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Linguashop: Amharic

Educational Software for Download

Systems: PC (Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista and XP)

Content: Amharic lessons with native speaker audio and speech recognition, grammar

Prices: USD 35 (second language for free)

Overall Value:

The Linguashop educational software ("TeachMe") is available for over 90 languages, including Amharic. It also includes an audio CD.

The native speaker audio and speech recognition are relatively good.

However, the interface of the learning software is quite chaotic and there are no exercises — only lessons where new vocabulary is presented.

It is also unclear how many words are included in this Amharic learning program. There is no information about this on the website.

Some grammar lessons are included — however, these are basically just images with short texts.

Summary: Poor quality for a relatively low price. You get language courses for two languages when you buy, one as a free bonus.

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