Amharic Present Tense

Tense is a grammatical feature that indicates the time when something happened or will happen.

Types of Amharic Verb Teses

We can classify an action as past, present, or future depending on when it occurs. Time is often expressed through prefixes, suffixes, and time-indicating adverbs.

There are three types of tenses in Amharic, the same as in English. They are:

1. Present
2. Past
3. Future

Amharic Present Tense

The Amharic simple present tense divides into three tenses: simple, continuous, and present perfect tense. Examples:

1. Present simple tense = እሱ ወደ ትምህርት ቤት ይሄዳል። He goes to school. / He will go to school.
2. Present continuous tense = እሱ ወደ ትምህርት ቤት እየሄደ ነው። He is going to school.
3. Present perfect tense = እሱ ወደ ትምህርት ቤት ሄዷል። He has gone to school.

Amharic Simple Present Tense

Let’s learn the simple Amharic tense first.

We use simple present tense to express things that happen always and general truths. Example:

• ፀሐይ በምስራቅ ትወጣለች። The sun rises from the east.
• ፀሐይ በምዕራብ አትወጣም። The sun doesn’t rise from the weast.
• ሙሐመድ ምግብ ይበላል። Muhammed eats food. 
• ሙሐመድ አማርኛ ያስተምራል። Muhammed teaches Amharic.
• ሙሐመድ እንግሊዘኛ ይችላል። Muhammed can speak English.

That’s it. This is the Amharic simple present tense; it is also the same with the simple future tense.

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Now, let’s see the Amharic present continuous one:

Present continuous tense:

We use this continuous tense to express something that is happening when we are talking.

So, when we form Amharic present continuous tenses, we add እየ or እያ on the beginning of the main verb, and we conclude the sentence with the be verb “ነው.” For example:

• ሙሐመድ ምግብ እየበላ ነው። Muhammed is eating some food. 
• እኔ አማርኛ እያስተማርኩ ነው። I am teaching Amharic.
• እሷ እንግሊዘኛ እየተናገረች ነው። She is speaking English.

So እየ and እያ are prefixes we use in the all continuous tense. Abd these prefixes don’t have meaning; they’re just like the ‘ing‘ forms in the English, but they indicate the continuous tense. Isn’t that simple?

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Amharic Present perfect tense (በቅርቡ የተፈፀመ)

We use this tense to describe something that happened recently. And the last part of the main verb contains some suffixes like ኣል, ኣለሁ, or ኡኣል. For example:

• እሱ ወደ ትምህርት ቤት ሄዷል። He has gone to school. / He went to school.
• እኔ የቤት ስራየን ጨርሻለሁ። I have done my homework.
• አንተ ስራህን ጨርሰሃል። You have completed your job.

And to produce the Amharic hybrid letters like ዷ፣ ሏ፣ ሟ etc, we need to press UA on our computer’s keyboards after we write the main letter like ድ, ል, or ም.

So, if there is some kind of ኣል, ኣለሁ or ኡኣል, know that it is a present perfect tense.

Please read this Amharic biography ebook to find all the Amharic tense’s rules applied there in a real world.

Summary:

የ present tense አይነቶች፦

1. Present simple tense => እሱ ወደ ትምህርት ቤት ይሄዳል። He goes to school.
2. Present continuous tense => እሱ ወደ ትምህርት ቤት እየሄደ ነው። He is going to school.

Present perfect tense => እሱ ወደ ትምህርት ቤት ሄዷል። He has gone to school.

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I have added an Amharic PDF book below to help you practice reading Amharic. You can look for the rules you learned in this lesson and see how they are used in a real book. Even if you don’t understand the Amharic text, just try to find the rules inside the eBook. You don’t need to understand everything—just focus on spotting the rules!

Click Next For Amharic Past Tense Lesson.