Tigrinya Grammar [Paperback]

John Mason (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Red Sea Press; 1st Red Sea Press, Inc., Ed edition (October 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0932415210
• ISBN-13: 978-0932415219
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #911,352 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Book Out There, January 7, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Tigrinya Grammar (Paperback)

Tigrinya Grammar by John Mason is the best book on the market for learning Tigrinya grammar. The problem (or is it?) is that you have to learn how to read Tigrinya to use the book since there is no English transliteration of Tigrinya words. This would pose a problem for a true beginner who does not yet know how to read Tigrinya *BUT* once the reader attains a basic grasp of reading the language, he/she will reap the benefits of proper pronunciation in Tigrinya since the reading of this language is delightfully phonetic! What you see is what you get, unlike trying to learn how to read English or French! Initially, learning how to read Tigrinya presents itself as a daunting task since there are over 200 characters in the "alphabet", but there is a system that makes memorization of all the characters individually unecessary. Rudimentary ability in reading Tigrinya can be acheived in less than a month of moderate study (approximately 7 hours a week) but consider that you may have to seek out a Tigrinya speaker to demonstrate proper pronunciation. If you do not have access to a Tigrinya speaker, there are cassette tapes available from the publisher of Tigrinya Grammar, Red Sea Press, that may help you with proper pronunciation. There are also computer software that can help you learn proper pronunciation.

If you are looking for a superficial survey of Tigrinya or some practical Tigrinya for travel to Eritrea or the Tigray province of Ethiopia where Tigrinya is spoken, you would be better-suited purchasing Tigrinya Phrasebook by Leonardo Oriolo (Red Sea Press) in which all the Tigrinya words/phrases are transliterated in English for those who can not read Tigrinya. If you want more than a superficial survey of the language, then I would have to say that Tigrinya Grammar is the best resource out there; once you have a basic grasp of reading Tigrinya.

How to Say It : English-Tigrinya-Italian, also by Leonardo Oriolo (Red Sea Press), is an excellent book to supplement Tigrinya Grammar for serious students of Tigrinya. Since I have yet to come across a competent English-Tigrinya/Tigrinya-English dictionary, How to Say It is the closest thing to that with many up to date terms, although by no means as extensive as a typical dictionary in most languages. Although it can serve as a basic dictionary, the bulk of How To Say It is composed of Tigrinya phrases which are a valuable supplement to Tigrinya Grammar's comparatively limited base of Tigrinya phrases. However, as with Tigrinya Grammar, How To Say It also requires the ability to read Tigrinya, which again is feasible within a month of moderate study.

These two books are the dynamic duo of the serious Tigrinya student who wants to learn a unique language for which there are limited learning resources. Good luck in your studies!

Note: All the books mentioned in this review are available from Amazon.com

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential purchase for anyone learning Tigrigna., August 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Tigrinya Grammar (Paperback)

I wish that I had found this book five years ago, when I first started learning the Tigrigna language. I heartily endorse this book for anyone learning Tigrigna. I've shown this book to people who's primary language is Tigrigna, and they've asked me to order them copies to give to their children. This could be a problem, as 90% of the book is written at the college English level. The author gives many Latin and some German examples. Still, I urge anyone, who is struggling to learn to speak the Tigrigna language, to buy this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars at least it's a start, March 20, 2009

By 

perekladach (Carbondale, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tigrinya Grammar (Paperback)

The Tigrinya language has a very low profile, which is hard to understand giving the historical and contemporary importance of its home turf. This book is limited, but as the only resource of its kind in English (and since the linguist who would produce a comprehensive course or grammar on Tigrinya probably hasn't been born yet) I feel duty bound to give it three stars. Pluses include a very nice typeface (the better-known 'Colloquial Amharic' should have had one half as good) and a good treatment of the tenses. Readers coming to to this from an Amharic background should be aware that some of the letters that have come to be pronounced the same way in Amharic maintain their distinctive pronunciations in Tigrinya; Tigrinya (like it's confusingly similarly named cousin Tigray) has stayed much closer to Ge'ez, Ethiopia's classical language, and they sound much closer to Arabic as well). Having worked through this book (it won't take long after finishing the writing section) go on to Leonardo Oriolo's 'Tigrinya Phrase Book' and plug some new vocabulary into your newly acquired grammatical patterns.