... Amharic, just like French and Spanish,
has masculine, feminine, informal (familiar), and formal forms
of subjects and verbs. For example, if you are talking to your
younger sister, you refer to her as 
(informal form of the subject "you"), or if you are
talking about her as a third person you use 
(informal form of the subject "she"). You use the
same subjects to refer to all informal females. However, if
you are talking to an elder lady from out of town for example
(or any lady that you are on formal bases with), then you use
(formal version of the subject
"you"), or 
(formal form of
the subject "her") to show respect.
Here is an example sentence. In the blue box below, you
are referring to a friend (a familiar and informal person) so
you use one type of subject. However, in the green box, you
are referring to a priest, a person you must show respect to
... so you use a different form of you (formal). Click on the
Amharic words to hear them read out loud. You must note that
the verb form is also different ... but let's save that for later
and learn the different type of subjects first.
We will discuss the other personal pronouns such as objects
(me, you, him, her,...), possessive (mine, yours, his,...) and
possessive adjectives (my, your, his,...) in another section.
We have a lot to learn about subjects and verb conjugation in
this section ...
