First words in Tamil

 

I have visited Singapore's bilingual Tamil and English club several times and having started the challenging task of learning to read and speak and write (Mandarin) Chinese, I thought it was time to tackle another one of Singapore's four official languages, Tamil.

I have used several approaches. 

The most useful for a jolly introduction, individual words and grammar is wikihow. The sentence structure usually has the verb at the end. The verb to be is not necessary. That explains why some Indian speakers create sentences without verbs. 

English - Tamil

I - nan

you -ninkal

he - avar

she - aval

it - atu

Tamil - English

atu - it

avar - he

aval - she

nan - I

ninkal - you

The Foreign Workers & Domestic Helpers language guide has Singapore's four official languages, English, Chinese, Tamil and Bahasa Indonesia, as well as Myanmar, and Bengali - the language of Bangladesh.

I didn't get on with the flashcards from livinglanguage.com/languagedemo/tamilflash

I could not work out the words from the sounds.  Good if you want to speak. I want to understand what I hear and to read. 

This flashcards would be good for me for Spanish and Italian and German where I can work out what they are saying and learn the accent. It worked well for me in Chinese.

Useful Websites

https://www.wikihow.com/Learn-Tamil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Tamils

https://digitaldefynd.com/best-tamil-language-courses/

https://www.livinglanguage.com/languagedemo/tamilflash/11930/essential-saying-hello

duolingo in January 2021, The Tamil course is 75% complete.

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Foreign Workers & Domestic Helpers Language Guide

About the Author

Angela Lansbury teacher of English (advanced and English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language, French and other languages, aspiring polyglot.

How to remember I, you, he, she and it in Indonesian

Problem
Indonesian is easier than other languages because he ahse and it are the same word, dia. However, how do you remember that dia is he, she or it?

Answer
I made up the memory aid: my dear friend (the man, the woman, the dog, the object - my favourite object such as a teddy bear. Dia is he, she or it.

Saya is I, so say I.

 u ending eith the letter u is you. If I see an Indonesian word ending with a u at the start of a sentence, and it isna't saya 0 I, nor dia, my dear friend, he, she or it, then ithe wor must be you.

But when translating from English how do I remember the first three letters? I have a friend called Kamlesh. Alternatively, think of the phrase: "Come here you!"

Indonesian - English
saya - I
kamu - you
dia - he, she or it

English - Indonesian
I - saya
you - kamu
he, she or it - dia

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of languages. If you want an entertaining talk or workshop on learning languages, please contact me.