Every Fidel character is one consonant plus one of seven vowels. Learn the seven and you can say all 231. Tap any character to hear it.
The sixth one is the tricky one
Written (ih) in brackets because it is barely there — sometimes a very short "i", often no vowel at all, just the consonant. ስ is usually said as plain "s".
Longer words work the same way
Words and phrases are respelled from these same seven sounds, one syllable per character, with a hyphen between the beats: ሰላም is suh-lahm. Stress is not marked, and Amharic doubles some consonants without writing it — so treat a long word as a close guide, and copy the recording when one exists.
What the apostrophe means
Sounds like k' and t' are ejectives: the same consonant, but sharper, with a small catch in the throat. There is no English equivalent — this is one to learn from the recordings.
Why two spellings?
Under each respelling you will see the scholarly transliteration (hä, hu, hé…). It is exact and reversible, which makes it useful for writing — but it is not how you sound a letter out. Use the big one to speak, the small one to write.