Selam — Speak Amharic
Learn Ethiopian Amharic
Only for iPhone
$3.99 · Designed for iPhone. Not verified for macOS.
iPhone
Learn to speak everyday Amharic, Ethiopia's working language, through short, focused lessons designed around how memory actually works. Every word and phrase is paired with audio recorded by a native Ethiopian speaker, so you learn how things actually sound, not how they look on a page.
Built around proven learning science:
• Spaced repetition: the words you struggle with come back at the perfect intervals to make them stick, while words you've mastered fade gracefully into the background
• Active recall before passive recognition: you're prompted to produce the Amharic for a concept before you see it, so vocabulary moves from short-term to long-term memory
• Eight varied exercise formats: listening comprehension, sentence-building, contextual scenarios, recall checks, matching pairs, and more. The variety isn't decoration; it's how your brain encodes language across multiple retrieval pathways
• Cultural anchoring: every lesson is grounded in real Ethiopian context (coffee ceremonies, family, market bargaining), so vocabulary attaches to vivid memory hooks rather than floating in isolation
Why it's actually enjoyable:
• A daily Word of the Day on the home screen, bite-sized exposure that takes 30 seconds
• Streaks and earned milestones marked in beautiful Ethiopic numerals that reward consistency without nagging
• A warm, considered visual design with no animated mascots, no fake urgency, no anxiety-driven nag prompts
• Tap any word, anywhere in the app, to hear it spoken
What you get:
• 25 hand-curated lessons across 5 chapters: greetings, numbers, family, food, travel, emotions, body, weather, work, and more
• Almost 200 vocabulary words, each with romanised text and the traditional Ge'ez (Ethiopic) script. Toggle whichever you prefer.
• Female-form alternates for greetings that change by who you're addressing. A real feature of spoken Amharic that most apps skip.
• Built-in review mode that organises everything you've learned by what's due next
What you don't get:
• No account or sign-in. Your progress lives on your phone.
• No ads. Anywhere.
• No tracking. None.
• No subscription pressure.
Whether you're planning a trip to Addis Ababa, reconnecting with family heritage, or just curious about one of the world's oldest written languages, Speak Amharic gives you something most language apps don't: a real human voice, science-backed practice, and a pace that respects you.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
Bug fixes and content corrections based on early-user feedback:
• Fixed a left/right pronunciation mismatch and several romanisation errors (sebat→sabat, arog→aroge, daseta→desta).
• Fixed festival translations (Meskel, Timket) to show their meanings instead of repeating the name.
• Sentence-building exercises no longer reveal the first word through capitalisation.
• Corrected the "white shoe" example phrase and the hamrawi/ros colour mix-up.
• Various audio and phonetic-guide refinements.
The developer, Jan de Haan, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Jan de Haan
- Size
- 18.7 MB
- Category
- Education
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.6 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.6 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.6 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.3 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 Pixel Wave
