This is a long running series of Ethiopian related books published in English and local Ethiopian languages. The books are published in both English and the local language through Open Hearts Big Dreams. This results in titles like Something is Coming: Wanti tokko dhufaa jira. I am not a fan of bilingual books for studying. This is because the language I am learning and the language I already know are next to each other. I am already past the level where this would have been nice. The other part is just that it makes it easy to gloss over the words. It generally helps your memory for there to be at least some struggle when initially learning vocab.
Especially for a language like afaan Oromoo early materials are difficult to find. So I have lots of these titles and I try to make use of them.
Something is Coming: Wanti tokko dhufaa jira
I have chosen this title as the one to include on this first post as an example. The vocabulary is basic but as always a way to add new words if you hadn’t seen one before. It easy to connect it to the English with the translation being right there.
This does show some good examples of nominative use of nouns and this would be a good way to start really getting used to that. It doesn’t give a ton of practice in it though, at least not in a single book, so you would probably want to go back and review after a while to make sure everything sticks.
After a big push in the first couple years of lots of titles, the publisher seems to have slown down a bit recently. It is often wishful but it would be nice to see these kinds of books go up a more noticeable amount in difficulty. Not just for learners of afaan Oromoo as a second language but also for native speakers. Often the focus is on early readers but there is still a lack of resources for budding readers. Short chapter books are difficult to find which is unfortunate for those not ready for novels but beyond children’s books. There are some short story collections that I will look at another day, but still a general lack for people who are growing their confidence in reading.