We still couldn’t get our hands on the audio of the book by David Appleyard, Colloquial Amharic ! We ordered it online from Amazon Germany but they haven’t sent it yet. Since we are a little anxious and we want to start right now, we began looking for the Foreign Service Institute course. The good thing about it is that it is available from the library, the bad thing is that it is in cassettes. But then came a surprise, it can be found online for free and already in digital format!
We learned that this course is a bit old and that it is already in the public domain, so you can freely copy it and distribute it. One of the places that has part of the course is the Foreign Service Institute website itself; there you can find the manual in pdf format and the audio of units 1 to 11 digitized as mp3s.
But if you want the complete audio, from units 1 to 60, it is available at the Indiana University website. You only have to download it and start to learn! 
Another thing I wanted to mention is that we found a website called Amharic.com that sells a bunch of CD Roms to learn Amharic and even has a demo online. I haven’t found any reviews about them, so I don’t know how good they are. If anybody has any comment about them, please let me know. There is another course available on CD Rom with mixed reviews: Talk Now! Amharic by Topics Entertainment.
For children there are some other books: Learn the Amharic Alphabet! by Nigat Tadesse, Our First Amharic Words and Ge’ez Activity Book. You can buy these two last books in AmharicKids.com.
AliciA
15 users commented in " Learning Amharic, free! "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackDear Alicia,
concerning FSI, unfortunately from audio file 41a on to 60d, it is only possible to listen to the files if you fill in username and password which is requested from the website…
Anyway, if I manage to learn chapter 1 to 40 by heart, my basics will be stable,
With best wishes,
PajaroMosca
Wow, I don’t know what happened because the audio files from the University of Indiana were available before without any restrictions, I downloaded them myself.
Maybe you should check later and see if they stop asking for a user name and password.
AliciA
Yes, that is what I thought, too.
Best regards,
PajaroMosca
Hello again,
I contacted the website and as the files are public domain, I got the information that as soon as there will be time the audio files will be opened again to public.
Inshallah,
PajaroMosca
Hi
Well that’s good news! I think that what is probably taking place is that they are converting the files from .wma to .mp3. The ones that I downloaded before were all .wma, so probably they decided to make them available in a more standard format.
Thnks for the information!
Regards
AliciA
T’ena yïsT’ïlliñ everybody!
I want to tell you good news:
I yet was informed by email that the Indiana University website has been updated so that all 60 lessons are now available!!
Let’s continue with our efforts to learn Amharic!
PajaroMosca
Great!
Thanks for sharing the news
AliciA
Just one quesiton. The Universtiy of Indiana website is great, but I didn’t see anything to click onto to download it. When going to the site it automatically went to the page that had all the audio listed in small boxes. Clicking on that went right to media player and the lesson. Any ideas?
Diane
Diane,
You have to right click every link and chose from the Menu “Save Target As” to download each audio clip to your computer.
AliciA
I have no problem downloading the links, but is the language only spoken in Amharic? No English word/phrase first then the Amharic? Thanks for any help
Beth
Beth,
The audio is only in Amharic but the manual is in English/Amharic so you have to follow the text while you listen to the audio. The complete manuals are at this site : http://www.fsi-language-courses.com/Amharic.aspx (Student text Vo.1 and Vol 2.)
AliciA
Thanks you Alicia
Alicia,
I know you posted this a long time ago but how do you get the reading materials? That link was a dead end. I really want to learn Amharic so if I could use these free audio that would be wonderful!
Thanks,
-Suzanne
Suzanne,
Unfortunately I can’t control what other sites do with their material. The manuals for the Amharic course from the FSI were available the last time I checked. Apparently now they’ve decided to removed the free manuals and sell the whole course in this address: (http://www.foreignserviceinstitute.com/languages/amharic/). I know the manuals are usually in any mayor library in the US, and I found this site that sells the digital version for a more reasonable price: http://www.ultimatelanguagestore.com/inc/sdetail/34814.
I’m sorry but there is not much I can do, the course is supposed to be public domain… I can only host material in my website that I made myself.
AliciA
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