This is conversation between my dad and I about the weather. Talking about weather was one of my goals on my learning plan and is one of the topics that I feel the most confident about at this point.

I learned that Bangladesh also has a different calendar than the one we use in the US, like Ethiopia does. I learned a lot about Korean culture and how stressful both school and work life seem to be. Also respect for elders is a big deal and overall it seems that Korean culture puts a lot of pressure on students and employees because they are more collectivist than the US. The Korean wedding process seemed extremely detailed and meticulous which is interesting. What was really interesting to learn about was the contract weddings that occur in the LGTBQ community. I also thought it was interesting how Hebrew has similar gender distinctions in most words like Amharic does. Learning about the importance of the market and being able to bargain was interesting because it is similar in Ethiopia since most people do not buy things from stores like we do.

I’ve learned that being a self-directed language learner is much harder than being in a traditional class setting and being told what to learn and when to learn. As for a cultural explorer, I’ve always been someone that has been interested in other cultures so learning more about Ethiopia and Eritrean culture was definitely something that I enjoyed doing. In some ways, I liked this better because I got to learn exactly what I wanted to learn. However, sometimes staying on top of my own learning was difficult. I also found keeping my notes organized difficult. I try to learn words and phrases that are related at the same time, but if I forget one then I have to go back and add to notes if I have space. I have enjoyed learning the language that my dad speaks and it is exciting to be able to understand some of what he says when talks to his family. I also enjoyed the satisfaction of improving in the language. Since the only language I’ve ever learned is Spanish, and I always took that in school for a requirement,it was much more rewarding to improve in a language that I chose to learn myself. I plan to continue learning for a long time until I am as close to fluent as I can get. I was lucky enough to have my dad as my language partner, so I will still have someone to practice with once the semester is over. I am also going to be living at home next year so I can pick up a lot more conversational Amharic speaking with my dad and other family members. It will be more intensive than my studies now when I am living in the same house as a native speak. I will also probably go back to Eritrea and maybe Ethiopia at some point so I will be immersed in the language and see how much I have learned. On top of that, my family in America always speaks Amharic when they visit each other so I can work on trying to understand and join in the conversation.  

The readings that were most useful for me personally were the ones from the beginning of the semester that talked about tips for language learning. I have never embarked on the journey of language learning on my own, so reading those helped me figure out what I wanted to put on my learning plan and how I wanted to go about my studies. One of the activities that helped me the most was looking at the phonetic sounds because when I first began learning, I was overwhelmed by all the sounds that don’t exist in English but it was comforting in a way to see those sounds in the phonetic alphabet. I would also like to learn more about the similarities between Amharic and other languages. I know it is similar to Tigrinya, which I would like to learn as well in the future, but I want to know if there are any major similarities to languages like Arabic.  

Family is extremely important in Ethiopian and Eritrean culture. This makes sense since there’s more of a collectivist mindset than countries like the United States. In my opinion, people usually respect their parents and grandparents more than in the United States. I also think that more people know their distant family more than people here do. For example, when I was in Eritrea and Ethiopia, I met some distant family members and I was amazed how my dad knew exactly how they were related to us. I think most people that I know don’t know relatives more distant than cousins and second cousins. It’s more important to know all members of your family and not just the immediate members. It is also very common for people to have their parents live with them when they get older. People are not likely to send their parents to a nursing home and would rather take care of them when they are elderly. Overall, I think family is just a more important aspect of life because its importance is emphasized early on.

This is another conversation between my dad and I. It includes questions and answers about my name, my family members' names and their ages.

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This is a conversation between my dad and about my identity. It includes questions and answers about name, age, birthday, where I live, and birthplace.

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I think I’ve made good progress in my language learning but I still have a long way to go. I thought I would know more by now but thinking about it, I took Spanish for 4 years consecutively just to be at an intermediate level. When putting that into context with my Amharic studies, I think I am doing fine but I know I will have to continue after this semester for a while more. It’s been rewarding to be able to talk to my dad in his native language and I really hope to get to the point where I can talk to my other family members and grandma. At times, my learning gets overwhelming because there are so many words to learn and they change in different contexts. Also having to learn how to pronounce sounds that don’t exist in English has been a huge hurdle for me in this process. I would say I’m almost over that hurdle but I, of course, have more to improve on.

I think the relationship between understanding culture and language in undeniable. Each culture has different values and beliefs and those are usually reflected in the language. If one does not understand the culture, then the way the people speak and the way they construct sentences probably won’t make sense. I have somewhat of an advantage in the aspect of understanding the target culture because it is what I’ve been around my whole life. I think learning the language that goes with the culture helps me understand more.

To improve communicative competence, I need to learn how to ask and answer questions and how to express my thoughts and feelings. I think in order to have communicative competence, I need to really learn how to speak and listen to Amharic so that I can make the necessary comments to get my point across. To do this I need to practice Amharic and try my best to speak with native speakers so I can immerse myself and learn the most effective ways to communicate. For example, in English, there are ways to communicate that are not the most efficient for getting your point across. I need to make sure that I am learning the most useful language first so that I can say what I am aiming to say. I think the other forms of competence that is most important for me in my studies are sociolinguistic and strategic competence. In order to speak a language and sound somewhat like a native, it is important to know the sociocultural rules that go with the language. Knowing what words and phrases are appropriate versus inappropriate is necessary in order to communicate the language effectively. Nonverbal communication is another essential aspect of being competent in a language. Body language and hand signs that relate to the culture and language can have lots of different meanings. I think this goes back to the relationship between language and culture because the culture shapes the nonverbal communication of the language.

Knowing the history of language can help one understand its origins and make connections to other languages with similar histories. I think when you know where a language originated and how it has mixed and interacted with other languages, some parts of the language are put into context and make more sense. Amharic belongs to the Semitic language family along with Arabic, Tigrinya, and Hebrew. Amharic and Tigrinya has similar sounds to Arabic which makes sense as there was contact between the Middle East and Ethiopia and Eritrea across the Red Sea. In both languages there are a lot of sounds that are produced from the back of the mouth and do not exist in English. This contact has made a lasting impact because along with having similar sounds with Arabic, the Arabic language itself is spoken throughout Ethiopia and Eritrea. Arabic is also the second national language of Eritrea after Tigrinya. Amharic also shows examples of contact with the Italians since the Italians conquered Ethiopia and Eritrea for a long period of time. There are words that clearly show this influence including autobus meaning bus and escribito meaning pen. Although I’m not sure what the history is, some words in Amharic are English words. Some have the same meaning while others do not. For example, soft is used for toilet paper and napkins. Words for technology are usually just the English words such as television and computer.

I think my progress so far is not bad, but it could be better. I find it hard sometimes to keep myself on track outside of my weekly meetings with my language partner. I also think my learning plan did not encompass of all the things that I need to learn in order to communicate. After thinking about what I need to learn and looking at my learning plan, I feel like it only scratches the surface. I definitely need to make my tasks include more topics in order to increase my learning as I finish out the semester. The main activity that I do is speak with my language partner, so I need to start doing more of the activities that I put on my learning plan. I also think I need to find more online resources so that when I am not learning with my language partner, I can learn more on my own. I also think I could start asking my language partner to give me activities to complete between our meetings.

Overall, I think one big area of progress that I’ve made is practicing the sounds that don’t exist in English. The more words I learn, the more prevalent those sounds become so it’s impossible for me to be able to speak Amharic without reproducing those sounds. I do still find myself getting overwhelmed when learning new words and phrases since there is so much to learn. I will, however, finish the semester strong and keep learning as much as I can.

A vital part Eritrean and Ethiopian culture is religion. The two most practiced religions are Orthodox Christianity and Islam. Orthodox Christianity is practiced the most, and Ethiopia is even said to be the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion. Religion is important in everyday life with people and it is even reflected in language. For example, there is a way to say thank you, but people prefer to say “God thanks you.” Also many names come from religion and the Bible. My sister’s name means Hallelujah while my brother’s name means resurrection. Almost all babies born into Orthodox Christian families are baptized in a church at a very young and it is a huge celebration. My siblings and I were all baptized in Orthodox churches before the age of one. People practice religion daily by praying and attending church weekly. Religious images and figures are present everywhere, in people’s houses, on the streets, and of course in the vast number of churches around the country. Fasting is also common for various religious holidays, with the largest being for Easter. Orthodox Easter is not the same day as the Easter that is celebrated in America and next to Orthodox Christmas, it is the biggest celebration of the year. My learning goals for the topic of religion are to understand the commonly used phrases by religion and the influence of religion in everyday language. I already know how to say God thanks you, but I’m sure that I will soon come across more religious based sayings. My grandma is very religious as well, so it would be nice to be able to communicate with her about her religion.

An interesting and important part of Eritrean and Ethiopian culture is the food. People of all different cultures love Ethiopian food because of its distinct taste. The most important food is injera, which is a bread that is made from tef. Injera serves as the base for almost all meals and it was is used to place food dishes on and pick up food with. The most commonly eaten dish is shiro which is made from chickpeas. Shiro is eaten at any time of day. Bebere is a spice that is commonly used to season food dishes. Bread and pasta are also large parts of the diet because of the Italian influence that is present. Utensils are sometimes used, but most food is eaten with the hands. The act of eating with one’s hands is also something that interests me because growing up around both Eritrean/Ethiopian culture and American culture, I would eat with my hands and utensils at home. However, I do believe that eating with the hands is easier than eating with utensils which makes it interesting that most of the world uses utensils while some use their hands.

The topic of food relates to language because there are specific names for all kinds of food in Amharic depending on the dish and the type of meat or vegetable used. In order to engage in the topic of talking about or ordering food, I need to learn all of the different words for types of food. I already know a lot of the names of dishes, but it is important for me to be able to describe those dishes and ask questions about them. I have included the topic of food in my learning plan since it is such an important part of learning Amharic. One of my main goals is to be able to order food in Amharic since I can probably utilize that aspect of the language the most.

The writing system in Amharic is called Ge’ez, also known as Ethiopic. Ge’ez was the original language spoken in Ethiopia, but now it is only used for speech in Ethiopian and Eritrean churches. This Ge’ez script has been adapted to write Amharic and Tigrinya. Ge’ez was first an abjad, or a consonant only alphabet. Now there are 33 basic letters and each letter have seven different forms based on the vowel that is pronounced. In total, there are 231 characters used to represent of all the sounds in Amharic. Since the alphabet is so extensive, I do not plan to learn how to write anything other than my name but I would like to be able to read a few common words or phrases.

My first artifact conversation was ok but I need to work on my accent more. I think it shows that I am not a native speaker so I need to improve on the pronunciation of specific words. My artifact included basic phrases that would be said in order to greet someone, introduce oneself, and say goodbye. The specific phrases I said were what would be said to a man since I set it up like I was speaking to my language partner. In Amharic, things as simple as good morning have different versions for a man, woman, multiple people, and elders. I also think that I can improve on my speed of speaking. Native Amharic speakers speak extremely fast so even though I was trying to speak fast, I’m not quite there yet.

As for my learning goals, I have mostly completed them because I learned how to talk about my family including how to say their titles (mom, dad, brother), their names, and their ages. I still need to practice these so that I can make sentences more fluently. I also still need to learn different personality traits so that I can describe people with more than just superficial information.

Artifact.mp3

"Hello. Good morning. How are you?. My name is Berhaun. I'm 21 years old and I am a student. Have a good day. Goodbye."

From my experiences growing up surrounded by both Ethiopian culture and American culture, I can say that they are very different. According to Hofstede’s dimensions of culture, Ethiopia has a large power distance, is more collectivist, masculine, and is in the middle of uncertainty avoidance. The large power distance is true in my experiences because in Ethiopia and Eritrea there is a large divide in the amount of power that is held by different people. Power is usually based on wealth and there is a small number of wealthy people compared to poor people. Ethiopians are also collectivist because they are willing to help others because they think that if they help someone, then their life will be better. The masculinity factor seems to show in the culture because men usually have more power than women and are seen as stronger. When I was in Eritrea, I was told that I should have been a man because I’m not weak. That comment was from a woman which shows their ideas of what a man and a woman should be like are still quite close minded. When talking about time, people do not follow the times that they state. For example is something is supposed to start at a certain time, it usually doesn’t. Also shops in Ethiopia and Eritrea close for lunch and stay closed for hours because people do not have strict time limits and do not rush. Even the bank completely closes for a few hours everyday so the workers can have lunch. In terms of time, everything is much more laid back and people don’t rush to be late because being late is not a big deal.

I experienced culture shock this past winter break when I was in Eritrea and Ethiopia. While in Eritrea, I was staying where there was no running water, no flushable toilets, no heat for the freezing nights, and solar powered lights that did not last for more than a few hours. At first I was a little shocked at the conditions even though I somewhat expected them. As time went on I began to try to become comfortable with the situation but it was so different than what I was used to that eventually it felt like I was losing my mind. It got to the point that all I could think about was going home because the conditions were so tough on me both physically and mentally.

My Learning Plan

Where are you now?  What can you do?  What do you know?

Use the Levels of Competence document and the LinguaFolio® checklists to assess your current abilities in your language.  For more information, see the SDLAP Wiki.

Interpersonal Communication-Beginning 0

Interpretive Listening-Beginning 0

Interpretive Reading-None

Presentational Speaking-None

Presentational Writing-None

What is your ultimate goal?  What is your goal for this semester?

What do you want to be able to do with this language at the end of this semester and in the future?

I want to be able to have casual conversations by the end of the semester. My number 1 goal is to be able to have a conversation with my grandma. She doesn’t speak English and I’ve always needed someone to translate for me.  In the future I want to be able to speak fluently and be able to read.

What tasks will you complete and what activities will you do this semester to meet your goals?  How will you document and evaluate your progress?

Novice learners should consult the ‘Language Tasks’ page of the SDLAP Wiki and incorporate the required tasks in their learning.  Be as specific as possible when planning activities, e.g., “I will watch YouTube videos to learn how to talk about the family.” or “I will consult a grammar text to learn about possessives.”  Make sure you include some tasks that are relevant to your interests, e.g., “I will learn to understand soccer commentary.” or “I will learn to talk about the stock market.”  Culture and language are, of course, inseparable.  It is expected that all your language will be culturally appropriate and that every task will contribute to your cultural competence.

An important part of Ethiopian and Eritrean culture is coffee. Coffee in Amharic is buna. Most people drink coffee everyday, as is done in other cultures, but the process of making it is what is unique. First fresh coffee beans are used and are roasted then grinded. While the beans are being roasted, the person making it brings the pan around to let everyone smell. Then a special coffee pot called a jebena is used to brew the coffee. The coffee is served in very small cups and each person adds sugar to their own cup. The beans that are roasted are used three times and are diluted more each time.  The first batch of coffee is called awul, the second batch is called hulettenya, and the third batch is called sostenya. Coffee is drank at all times of the day, but from my experience, most drink it in the middle of the day after lunch. When you go to another person’s house, they always offer to make you coffee. However, I don’t like coffee, so I usually ask for tea, another popular drink. In restaurants, there is always coffee (and tea) on the menu and in Ethiopia there are people whose sole job is to make coffee all day in the restaurants using the traditional method. Coffee is not only used as a drink but as a way for people to spend time with one another.

I’ve organized my learning plan to include the basics of what I need to know in order to communicate effectively in Amharic. So far, I have learned greetings, how to introduce myself, numbers, days of the week, simple weather phrases, colors, and simple questions. My studies will allow me to investigate Amharic and Ethiopian/Eritrean culture more deeply by giving me more insight into the specific ways that everything is described. I know that is not the best way to put it but there are certain things in other languages that are hard to translate so by knowing the language, one can get a better understanding of cultural aspects. I have had an interest to learn Amharic my whole life because I have grown up hearing it spoken. There were always times where I would be surrounded by my family speaking Amharic while I sat and listened with no idea about what was being said. My interest to learn has grown as I’ve gotten older because I really want to be able to speak to my grandma, who knows about 3 words in English. I haven’t had enough time to devote to learning, however, because of my load of school work. Now that I can actually learn Amharic and have it count as a unit, it has really motivated me to start learning and learn as much as I can while I have the time to devote to it. As for my learning plan, I want to make it more specific and include more sub-tasks in each task. I also want to find better artifacts like conversations that I translate or letters that I try to read. I also want to find more ways to test my knowledge than just having conversations with my language partner.

This week my learning goals were to learn how to tell time, ask the simple who/where/what questions, learn the days of the week, and basic colors. I accomplished these goals with much more ease than I thought I would. I was able to form some short sentences by building off of what I have already learned. I learned these words and phrases by speaking with my language partner.  I have come to realize that my language partner is the best resource for me because I like to hear what each words sounds like so that I can write down my own phonetic transcription.  After going over these terms and forming sentences, I have been practicing on my own. Even though I am still at a beginner level in Amharic, I think I am on the right track to be able to complete all of the tasks I included in my learning plan.

The Global Studio does not currently have any resources for Amharic.  Some resources that could be purchased include a book titled “The Essential Guide to Amharic: The National Language of Ethiopia”.  Another resource could be an Amharic Language Tutorial Program, Amharic 101. One of these is a print resource and the other is a downloadable program so I could switch between the two.

Amharic is not on BYKI or Mango Languages but I did find a couple of resources to bookmark on Diigo. One of the resources I bookmarked is a youtube video which will be useful for me because I can hear the pronunciations of the words as I am learning them. I will supplement these resources with talking to my language partner and engaging in conversation so I can learn how to implement what I am learning.

I have begun to work on my first two language tasks by talking to my language partner and practicing the different greetings and basics of Amharic. I have been practicing my pronunciation and writing out phonetic versions of what I am learning so I can read them back to myself. I have also been practicing making some speech sounds that do not exist in English.  They are extremely hard to make and it’s obvious that I’m not a native speaker but one of my goals is to be able to make these sounds before the end of the semester.