When you are trying to teach your children Amharic or any language, you have to make it fun.  One of the best ways I have found to start teaching my kids Amharic is to start with teaching them the animals in Amharic.

Children love animals.  They love to cluck like a chicken and hop around like a bunny.  It is so easy to make it fun to learn the names of the animals.

Put It to Music

I started teaching my kids the animals in Amharic by first just having them repeat the names of the farm animals in the car while we were driving.  While you are driving in the car is a great time to do this because you have their undivided attention with little distractions.

And of course, my kids love singing.  So the next thing I did was change the words to Old McDonald Had a Farm to Amharic.  I changed “McDonald” to “Seyoum” because first of all there is not a McDonald in Amharic.  And second of all, Seyoum is their grandfather’s name and they got a kick out of that.

We would sing the song as we were driving around town.  It was a rough start, but children can learn almost anything if you put it to music.  So they picked up on it pretty quickly.

Play Games

Another thing that kids love to do is play games.  I made animal game cards with the names of the animals in Amharic.

I printed two sets of the cards and we played a matching game.  The kids had to say the name of the animal as they flipped the card over.  If they found a match, they kept the cards.  Whoever had the most matches at the end of the game, won.

(I cheated a little and gave my youngest a little help, couldn’t have his older brother winning everything.  Don’t tell.)

We also took those same cards and played Go Fish.  I handed out 4 cards to everyone.  The first player would ask if another player had a specific animal in Amharic.  If the other player did, they placed the matching cards face up on the table.  If the other player did not have the card, the first player had to pick a card from the pile in the middle.

But the game that the boys liked the best was the animal scavenger hunt.  I spread the cards throughout the room.  I would call out an animal and they had to run around the room trying to find the right card.

Anytime you involve running and competition with my boys they are all for it.

These games are so fun that they will ask me to play them when they see the cards.

Go to a Farm

The kids really put their words to the test when we went to the farm.  They got to see most of the animals.  I talked to them in Amharic and asked them what animals they saw and what the animals said.

It was fun for them because it was more than just mom quizzing them.  They got to pet the animals and even see the baby animals.

Read Books with Animals

Anytime you read to children it is great.  So you can get animal books like Moo, Baa, La La La and say the names of the animals in Amharic.

But if you can read to children in the language you are trying to teach them it is even better.  So reading books like Let’s Learn the Animals in Amharic will help young children but more so older children because they will see the Amharic words and the English translations.  This will help them learn Amharic even faster.

The most important thing is that they are learning the names of the animals in Amharic and one step closer to learning and being able to speak Amharic.

What are you doing to teach your children Amharic?