Language/Amharic/Grammar/Time-Phrases

Time Phrases in Amharic

In the phrase በልጅነቱ bälïjïnätu (in Example II above) በ bä means when as in “when he was a child” or “in his childhood”. (ልጅነት lïjïnät means childhood). More examples of this use are:

በወጣትነቱ bäwät’atïnätu in his youth

በድሮ ጊዜ bädïro gize once upon a time lit. in ancient or past times

With the completion of this lesson, consider investigating these related pages: “to be” and “to have”, Direct and Indirect Object Affixes, 0 to A1 Course & Expressing Possession.

Source

https://www.livelingua.com/peace-corps/Amharic/Amharic%20Peace%20Corps%20Language%20Manual-2015.pdf

Other Lessons

• Complex Sentence
• Time Clauses
• Compound sentence
• The Past Perfect Tense
• Definite Direct Objects in the Simple Past
• The Present Perfect Tense
• Time Adverbs
• Simple Past Tense Forms of Other Verbs (Negative)
• Negation
• Definite direct objects in the present and future tense