To Be & To Not Be + There is/isn't
It's now time to look at our first verb in Amharic: ‘To be’. This is an irregular verb in Amharic, but don't worry, since the majority of verbs are regular. The infinitive ‘To be’ in Amharic is መሆን. The infinitive is the unchanged form of the verb - the ‘To ...’ form in English, from which you get all the conjugations (the changes to the verb for each person). Amharic has two tenses: Past & Present-Future. This means that to say a future-tense action, like ‘I will go’, you use the same form as the present tense ‘I go’. It is important to note that the word order in Amharic is SOV (Subject, Object, Verb). Therefore, instead of saying ‘I eat food’, you say ‘I food eat’ - the verb goes at the end of the sentence. So, let's look at the positive aspect of መሆን in the present tense.
Now would be a good time to tell you that negation in Amharic works differently to the way you're probably used to. In most languages negation occurs by simply placing a negative word or expression in front of or after the verb - for example, in Spanish, ‘No’ is placed before the verb, and in German, ‘Nicht’ is placed after it. In Amharic however, we have to change what we add to the verb. I won't get too much into conjugation just yet, as that will be covered later on, but the basic way of conjugating in Amharic is adding prefixes and suffixes (small parts) to the beginning and end of the verb root. Here is the verb መሆን in the negative aspect in the present tense.
In Amharic, using the personal pronoun is optional, and it's usually left out. It's often used when you want to emphasize which person you're talking about. So you can say either እኔ ደህና ነኝ/አይደለሁም or simply ደህና ነኝ/አይደለሁም. In the case of እርስዎ, እሳቸው, and እነሱ, unless it is already clear who is meant, it is better to include the personal pronoun - saying ደህና አይደሉም could be እርስዎ, እሳቸው or እነሱ, as they all use the same form. There are situations where it will be obvious which is meant, in which the personal pronoun can be omitted - for example, if you're talking with someone about a group of people, in which case the subject could only be እነሱ.
Here's some practice to help you learn these new words. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate form of መሆን.
I am a student - ተማሪ ...
I am a student - ተማሪ ነኝ
His sister is small - እህቱ ትንሽ ...
His sister is small - እህቱ ትንሽ ናት
We are very happy - በጣም ደስተኛ ...
We are very happy - በጣም ደስተኛ ነን
Are you a doctor? - አንቺ ሐኪም ...?
Are you a doctor? - አንቺ ሐኪም ነሽ?
They aren't Ethiopian - ኢትዮጵያውያን ...
They aren't Ethiopian - ኢትዮጵያውያን አይደሉም
Where is the school? - ትምህርት ቤቱ የት ነው?
Where is the school? - ትምህርት ቤቱ የት ...?
Are you from America? - እርስዎ ከአሜሪካ ...?
Are you from America? - እርስዎ ከአሜሪካ ነዎት?
Her hair isn't short - ጸጉሯ አጭር ...
Her hair isn't short - ጸጉሯ አጭር አይደለም
Next up is a verb which can be used to talk about the existence of a something/someone. This verb doesn't have an infinitive form, but in the እሱ form the verb is አለ, so I'll be referring to it as that.
The verb is followed by ‘Here’ to help remind you that it is used to talk about the existence of a subject.
The two important forms to learn are the forms for እሱ and እነሱ. As you can see, these forms also mean ‘There is’/‘There are’ and ‘There isn't’/‘There aren't’. Here are a couple of example sentences.
ምግብ አለ?
↳ Is there food?
ብዙ ሰዎች አሉ።
↳ There are a lot of people.
ዛሬ ሥራ የለም።
↳ There's no work today.
እዚህ እንስሳት የሉም።
↳ There are no animals here.
The other forms of አለ aren't as common. Two forms which are used fairly frequently are አለሁ and አለን, which can be said in response to someone asking how you are. They literally mean ‘I am here’ and ‘We are here’ respectively, but are used in the sense of ‘I'm managing’ or ‘We're coping’.