#tamil lessons

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Tamil lesson 1: Vowels 

Hey guys! I realised I’m not posting anything on here so I’m starting a series on Tamil basics. Every week (hopefully🤞🏽) I’ll post a short lesson starting with the letters and then going up to grammar. The goal for these lessons is to have an easy reference page for the language and introduce it to others too. For those who want to learn the language, my hope is that these lessons will be the main thing you’ll need to follow and practice with to get a basic understanding of the language. 

Before starting with the first lesson let’s learn about the Tamil script. The tamil script is an abugida which is basically when a consonant and vowel is written together as a unit. The tamil language contains 12 vowels and 18 consonants, is written from left to right and each letter is written in the clockwise direction. Let’s get going with the vowels!

Vowels are called உயிர் எழுத்துக்கள் (uyir ezhuthukkal) [soul letters]

There are 12 vowels that are differentiated based on vowel length. These are short, long and elongated. We’ll ignore elongated for now and just focus on short and long. When a word is started, a vowel is written with its own symbol and when it’s written in the middle or end of a word its combined with the previous consonant (for example : அம்மா (ammā) [mother] where the bold one is the vowel letter and மா is the combined form for the syllable mā). We’ll focus on the combined forms in a later lesson but below are the vowels on their own and the way to write them. For the long vowels, I have given two transliterations in the bracket because if you want to type using the Tamil Anjal keyboard you have to use the second form i.e aa for ஆ etc. I’ve attached a pronunciation recording too in the order that the letters appear below.

அ (a) - cup      

ஆ (ā/aa) - father

இ (i) - kick

ஈ (ī/ii) - feet

உ (u) - push

ஊ (ū/uu) - too

எ (e) - pet

ஏ (ē/ee) - skate

ஐ (ai) - final

ஒ (o) - poke

ஓ (ō/oo)- vote

ஔ (au) - bound

The ones without the dash (a) are the short vowels and the ones with the dash on top / repeated ones (ā/ aa) are the long vowels along with ஐ (ai) and ஔ (au). That’s all for today folks! In the next lesson I’ll introduce some consonants.

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Tamil lesson 2: Hard Consonants

Consonants are called (மெய் எழுத்துக்கள்) (Mei ezhuthukkal) [body letters]. There are 24 (18 + 6) consonants, where the 18 consonants are called Tolkappiyam consonants and the 6 are of Sanskrit origin and are called Grantha consonants. All the consonants have an inherent “a” sound. Consonants with a dot on top are used to denote vowel less consonants. Eg: க (ka), க் (k) [we normally learn this sound as ik].

The 18 consonants are further divided into 6 hard consonants, 6 soft consonants and 6 middle consonants. In this lesson we’ll focus on the 6 hard consonants [vallinam ezhuthukkal (வல்லினம் எழுதுக்கல்) ]

க் (k/g) - cup

ச் (ch/j) - chalk

ட் (t/d) - dad (pronounced with the tongue rolled back) [retroflex consonant]

த் (th/dh) - thermal

ப் (p/b) - palm

ற் (tr/r(R)) / (t) - tree / (acetone)

These hard consonants are allophonic between their voiceless and voiced pairs, which means they can shift between being voiceless (k) and voiced (g) depending on the position of the letter in a word. We can use the same symbol for both these sounds because they occur in complementary distribution and follow some rules but they are really simple. First we’ll just focus on the first column i.e voiceless. If a letter is in the beginning of a word or occurs as a pair in the middle or when it is in a consonant cluster with another hard consonant it is voiceless. When a consonant occurs as a pair i.e க்க it’s called a germinated consonant which means you have to pronounce the consonant just for a little bit longer.

Eg:

கடல் (kadal) [ocean]

பக்கம் (pakkam) [beside/near]

When these letters come in the middle without a pair or occur in the middle with their homo organic nasal they are voiced. A homo organic nasal is basically every one of these 6 consonants has their own nasal pair and when this consonant comes after its nasal pair it becomes voiced. We’ll deal with nasals (i.e the soft consonants) in the next lesson.

தங்கம் (thangam) [gold]

நகம் (nagam) [fingernail]

The letters க், ட், த், ப் all follow this rule nicely, but ச் and ற் are both a little weird.

Let’s look at ச். This letter shifts from being ch and s and can be quite annoying for beginners.  In the initial position it can occur as either s or ch, in the middle it occurs as s when written individually ச் and as j when followed by its nasal ஞச (nja).

Lastly we’ll see this very weird letter ற். Basically this used to be a soft t sound (acetone) but then later it became a tr (tree) ற்ற் when written as a pair and became an r (a trilled/rolled r) sound when written in the middle as one ற். This is written in brackets as R because you have to press the shift key and type r in the keyboard. Lastly when followed by its nasal it occurs as dr (dragon), ன்ற்.

Ok so here’s a handy table summarising all these rules and the recording summarises the pronunciation of each consonant from left to right.

Lol this is a lot of info, good news is these are the only “hard” consonants you’ll have to learn (pun intended!). Don’t worry too much if you can’t hear the difference or about memorising any of it cos as you play with the language more and more you’ll automatically get it.

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Tamil lesson 8: Pronouns II

In the last lesson we discussed 3rd person pronouns. In this lesson we will discuss 2nd, 1st person and 4th person.

The main difference between the 3rd and the other three are that the 3rd person doesn’t require a different form to take cases. For example: 

அவனுக்கு என்ன வேண்டும் ( what does he want?) 

அவன் எஞ்சினியர் (he is an engineer)

நான் எஞ்சினியர் (I am an engineer)

உனக்கு என்ன வேண்டும்? (What do you want?) 

Notice the contrast between these two forms. In the latter, when adding a suffix, you have to change the form of the noun, that is what is known as an oblique form. 

And as usual in spoken tamil whenever nasal comes at the end, instead of the nasal the vowel gets nasalised (ref:spoken Vs written). 4th person is usually only in the written form, it is not used colloquially. 

These are relatively straightforward, for example:

This is my bag

இது என் பை

Where is your bag?

உன் பை எங்க?

The 4th person is தான் and தாங்கள் is used in the context of 3rd person, ‘he, she, it’ and ‘they’ respectively but used when the person refers to themselves or used in the context of the divine. This is called the 4th person by some scholars because they use different rules from the 3rd person and it’s easier to differentiate if a different label is applied.

For example: அவன் தன்னை வெருக்கிறான் (he hates himself) 

கடவுளே, தாங்கள்ளுக்கு தெரியாதா யென் கஷ்டதெ

(Oh god, do you not know my sorrow/problem) 

அவள் தனக்குலே சிரிதாள்

(She laughed within herself) 

அவர் தான் இந்த புதகத்தை குடுத்தார். 

(He only gave this book) [in this sentence தான் is used in a qualifying manner, i.e to answer a question like “are you sure he is the one who gave this book?”]

Lastly, let’s discuss the respective terminals, just as how the verbs agreed with the pronouns in the last lesson, same principle applies here 

நான் வருவேன் (I will come)

நாங்கள் வருவோம் (we will come)

நாம் போவோம் (we will go)

நீ வருவாய் (you will come)

நீங்கள் வருவீர்கள் (you’all / you (honorific) will come)

That is all for this lesson!

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Tamil lesson 12: Cases I & II with pronouns 

The cases with the pronouns follow the same concept as the nouns, this lesson will reiterate that as well as elaborate on where to use -கு, -க்கு and -உக்கு allomorphs of the Dative case. 

Example : 1st person 

நான் ஒரு மனிதன் . I am a human being   

என்னை மறந்து விடு . Forget me 

எனக்கு பயணம் பிடிக்காது . I don’t like travel . 

So for the 3rd sentence, based on the different roles of dative case I identified in the last lesson we can say that here it plays role (iv) recipient of experience.

Example : 2nd person

நீ நாளை பள்ளிக்கு வர வேண்டும் . You should come to school tomorrow  

உன்னை நம்புகிறேன் . I trust you 

நான் உங்களுக்கு நன்றி உள்ளவனாக இருப்பேன் . I will be thankful to you

Here in the 3rd sentence we can see that the person is the indirect object and the transaction is the feeling of gratefulness so it’s the (i) role. 

Example : 

அவள் நன்றாகப் பாடுவாள் . She will sing well.

அவளைக் கூப்பிடு . Call her (As in ask her to come and not call her by phone)

இந்த வீட்டை அவர்களுக்கு பரிசளித்தார்கள் . They gifted the house to them.

Here also it is (i) indirect object where the object is the house (marked by -ஐ) and because the house has been gifted to them (they possess this house now) they are marked with -க்கு

If I were to give my keys to my neighbour when I go out on holiday, they will hold my keys for sometime (they possess the keys temporarily) so I say:

நான் அவர்களிடம் (அவர்கள் + இடம்) சாவியைக் கொடுத்தேன் 

In the colloquial language, as usual -ai (-ஐ) becomes -a (-அ). So back to our trusty sentence 

நாய் பூனையை விரட்டியது becomes (நாய் பூனய விரட்டிச்சு) -> த்த and யத becomes ச்ச

So in the last lesson I said that the dative case can use -க்கு, -உக்கு or -கு so how do you know which one to use?

a) the allomorph -kku occurs 

(i) after the oblique stem of nouns and pronouns 

maram 'tree'   mara-ttu-kku 

pala 'many' pala-v~arru-kku 

aaru 'river' aar-ru-kku 

viitu 'house'viit-tu-kku 

ii) after the noun stem of nouns ending in i,ii,ai,ay or the short vowel u. 

tampi 'younger brother' tampi-kku

cattai 'shirt' cattai-kku naay 'dog' naay-kku 

makku 'fool' makku-kku 

patippu 'study' patippu-kku

b) the allomorph -ukku occurs after the noun stem of all other nouns, e.g. 

ammaa 'mother' ammaa-v-ukku

puu 'flower' puu-v-ukku 

paal 'milk' paal-ukku teru 'street' teru-v-ukku

paiyan 'boy' paiyan-ukku

c) The allomorph -ku occurs after the euphonic increment -in or -an, which is optionally inserted between oblique or noun stem and case suffix (in other words you don’t have to worry about this allomorph unless you are are writing in the language). Note the operation of the morphophonemic rule which changes the nasal n of -in or -an into r before k of the dative case suffix -ku.  

paal 'milk' + -in + -ku = paal-ir-ku 

ammaa 'mother' + -in + -ku = ammaa-v-ir-ku 

tampi 'brother' + -in + -ku = tampi-y-ir-ku 

In the next lesson I’ll discuss the locative case -இல் and the bound post position -இடம். 

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Tamil lesson 9: Nouns 

வணக்கம்! Let’s start off with a simple Noun-noun sentence. 

Eg: Murugan is a teacher

முருகன் வாத்தியார் 

murugan vaattiyaar 

Murugan teacher 

Tamil uses the word for one (ஒரு) for ‘a’ but that is not always required, especially when speaking. So ‘Murugan is a teacher’ can also be written as முருகன் ஒரு வாத்தியார். 

Noun-noun sentences in Tamil can also be made using demonstrative pronouns such as இது (itu) 'this', அது (that) 'that' etc., and possessive pronouns such as என் (en) 'my', உன் (un) 'your-intimate', உங்கள் ( உங்க ) 'your-polite' etc.

இது என் புத்தகம் 

itu en puttaham 

This my book 

'This is my book!' 

Similarly, each of these noun phrases can co-occur with adjectives as follows.

உங்கள் புத்தகம் நல்ல புத்தகம் 

(உங்க புத்தகம் நல்ல புத்தகம்)

Your book good book

'Your book is a good book 

Just like English, adjectives come before the nouns in Tamil too. 

Questions can be made in a similar manner, but by the substitution of question words such as என்ன (enna) 'what', எது (edu) 'which-thing', எங்கே (engkee) 'where', யார் (yaar) 'who' and எப்பொழுது/எப்போது (eppozhutu/eppoodu) 'when'. In many instances, these words occur at the end of sentences.

உங்கள் பெயர் என்ன?

(உங்க பேரு என்ன?)

Your name what?

'What is your name’

Because question words come at the end of sentences, it is much easier to identify if someone is asking a question or referring to themselves, because both these concepts start with எ. Eg:

உங்கள் பெயர் என்ன?

Your name what? 'What is your name?’

என் பெயர் முருகன்

My name Murugan ‘my name is Murugan’

அவர்கள் ஊர் எது?

(அவுங்க ஊரு எது)

His/her {native town} which?

'Which is her/his native town?

The negative form of noun-noun sentences is made by attaching the negative word இல்லை to the end of the sentence. The use of this word is obligatory in all such negative sentences. It is also necessary that this word must occur at the end of the sentence.

எங்கள் ஊர் மதுரை இல்லை 

(எங்க ஊரு மதுரெ இல்லெ)

Our {native town} Madurai not

'Our native town is not Madurai'

We can now move on to the conjunctions. Firstly we’ll see the conjunctions “and” and “or”. To form conjunctive sentences we basically add -உம்  and -ஆ respectively to the noun. let’s take an example: 

(1) the sea (கடல்) and the tree (மரம்)

கடல்லும் [கடல் + உம்] மரம்மும் [மரம் + உம்]. 

(2) the sea or the tree: கடலா மரமா. 

If you add the ஆ suffix separately to a noun eg sea it changes it into a question i.e 

sea > sea? கடல் > கடலா? Eg: இந்த கடல் (this sea), இந்த கடலா? (This sea?)

உங்கள் பெயர் கண்ணனா? (கண்ணன் + ஆ)

(உங்க பேரு கண்ணனா?)

Is your name kannan?

கண்ணன் உங்கள் பெயரா? (பெயர் + ஆ) 

(கண்ணன் உங்க பேரா? )

Is Kannan your name?

நான் உயரமா? நீங்கள் உயரமா?

(நான் ஒயரமா? நீங்க ஒயரமா?)

Am I tall, or you are tall?

This lesson focused on basic constructions, in the next lesson I will introduce cases.

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Tamil lesson 4: Middle consonants

Welcome back! Let’s dive right into the fourth lesson. The middle consonants are called (இடையினம் எழுத்துக்கல் [idaiyinam ezhuthukkal]) and there are 6 of them. 

ய் - yam

ர் - road (fig below used to be the old way of writing the letter, just add the stem below when writing)

ல் - life

வ் - visit

ள் - hard L *no equivalent

ழ் - *no equivalent

The three l sounds need a bit more explanation. So basically you pronounce ல் like you do a normal English l and then you roll your tongue backwards, first to the middle ( the hard palate ) for ள் and then to the all the way back for ழ். Just think of ல் as a soft l and ள் as a hard l.

ல la - English l

ள La - tip of tongue midway

ழ lza - tongue curved inward all the way back

Ok so let’s learn some common words now:

அன்னா - older brother

அக்கா - older sister

தாதா - grandfather

ஆம் (ஆமா) - yes

இல்லை (illai) (இல்ல) - no

Even though these terms are used to denote family members, they are also used to call strangers. So, if you wanted to ask for directions and you saw a woman on the sidewalk you’ll just say அக்கா (to call her) followed by the question. Kind of like the equivalent of “excuse me”.

Eg 1: அக்கா, how do I go to the beach?

(அக்கா, பீச்சுக்கு எப்படி போகனொ·?)

(Akkā, bīchchukku eppadi pōganõ?)

Notice that I’ve put the sentences in a bracket. This is because this is the colloquial form and there is no standard way of transcribing this form. I’ll put all colloquial forms in brackets from now on. Also see how I’ve put a center dot (·) after the word, this is to indicate that the end is a nasal vowel so… னொ (no) -> னொ· (nõ). This seems like an intuitive transcription and I’ve chosen to do it like this as the script itself doesn’t have a way to represent nasal vowels even though they are present everywhere in colloquial speech.

ய் and வ் are also called facilitator consonants because when a word ends with a vowel and the other words begins with a vowel and you have to join them you use one of these two. This is because Tamil abhors consonant (when it is not included in the rule book) and vowel clusters. 

1. As a general rule, when any vowel (V) follows இ, ஈ, or ஐ, the facilitator consonant ய் appears an easy way to remember this is to think of ஐ as அ+இ so - இய-; when any vowel follows a vowel other than இ, ஈ, ஐ and உ, the facilitator consonant வ் appears (so. அ, ஆ, ஊ ,எ ,ஏ ,ஒ, ஓ, ஔ) .  When another vowel appears in front of உ, the உ disappears.

உ + V = உ V 

இ, ஈ, ஐ + V = ய்

அ, ஆ, ஊ ,எ ,ஏ ,ஒ, ஓ, ஔ + V = வ்

Eg 2: In this example you can see how the rule described in 1. plays out when adding suffixes to a word. 

Whose is this pencil?

This pencil is that woman’s

இந்த பென்சில் அந்த அக்காவோடது

(அக்கா + ஓடது = அக்காவோடது) (akkāvōdadhu)

Here அக்கா ends with ஆ and the suffix starts with ஓ and both are vowels so we add வ்.  

That’s all for this week! Just two more lessons and we’ll be done with all the letters. Here’s the link to the master list that contains all the lessons so far. 

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Supplement 2: Conversations and some reading notes

The last two lessons had way too many tables and since I said that once pronouns and question words are learnt you’re good to go conversing, let’s see a simple conversation.

Noun vocab:

பேர் - name

வீடு - house

நன்பன் - male friend

All of the bolded words are the ones that we have come across in the last two lessons, the red ones, the noun vocab introduced above and the purple ones were introduced in the previous lessons. The green ones are the names you can substitute with your own.

வணக்கம், என் பேர் முருகன். ( hi, my name (is) Murugan)

உங்கள் பேர் என்னது? (What is your name)

என் பேர் ப்ரியா (my name (is) Priya)

இது யார்? (Who is this? *points to a person nearby)

இது குமார், இவன் என் நன்பன் (this (is) Kumar, he is my friend)

ஆ, சரி (oh ok) (*this can come of as quite rude, but for the sake of simplicity let’s keep it this way)

உங்கள் வீடு எங்க இருகிறது (இருக்கு)? (Where is your house?)

அங்க தான் இருக்கிறது (இருக்கு) (it is there only *points to a far off location)

போகலாமா? ( shall we go?)

ஆம், போகலாம் (yes, let’s go)

As you can see from the conversation above you can pretty much have a basic conversation with a native speaker if you understand the pronoun lessons because after that all you have to do is insert the nouns and verbs and at the beginning you can just use English words as substitutes as you build up vocabulary. Secondly, notice how the words that aren’t mentioned highlighted in the conversation above always come at the end, this is because it is an SOV language so verbs always come at the end and being able to identify that when listening will help when trying to understand what a speaker is saying.

Below is an example by a speaker who came to Tamil Nadu and their way of acquiring the language.

My first interaction with a Tamilian.

Me: Uncle, half litre milk please.

15 days later.

Me: Anna, half litre paal. ( Paal - Milk)

1 month later.

Me: Anna, ara litre paal. ( Ara- Half)

2 months later.

Me: Anna, ara litre paal kudunga. ( Bro, please give me half litre milk)

6 months later.

Me: Anow, ara litre paal eduthu vekka sonnene, vachingala? ( Bro, I asked you to keep aside half litre milk. Did you do it?)

Reading Tamil can be quite difficult because of the allophonic nature of the stop consonants i.e (க், ச், ட், த், ப், ற்) [see lesson 2]. Let’s see an English example: cat, car; in these two examples the a is pronounced differently. Tamil follows the same concept but the script gives a clue: க்க், க்__ are both pronounced [k] and _க்_, _ங்க்_ are pronounced [g]. The repetition of the same letter twice is called gemination i.e க்க் means that க் has been geminated. Examples with these consonants are given below.

பாட்டு [pāttu] song, பாடு [pādu] sing

திரும்பு [thirumbu] return, திருப்பு [thiruppu] turning

The gemination of consonants is important even for other consonants. Geminated consonants are pronounced a bit longer and can change the meaning of a word significantly.

1. பயன் [payan] usefulness, பய்யன் [payyan] boy

2. கன்னம் [kannam] cheek, கனம் [kanam] thickness

3. பணம் [paNam] money , பண்ணு [paNNu] make/do

4. புளி [puLi] tamarind , புள்ளி [puLLi] dot

5. புலி [puli] tiger, புல்லி [pulli] calyx

6. ஆமா [āma] yes , அம்மா [ammā] mother

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Tamil lesson 7: Pronouns I and Question words

Ok so we are starting with the fun stuff! Grammar! Almost 80% of the language contains pronouns (பிரதிப் பெயர்ச் சொல்) so I’ll divide the pronoun lessons into 3 parts to get a thorough understanding of them. Firstly, let’s start off with 3rd person pronouns. 

அவன் (அவ·) - he (casual)

அவள் (அவ) - she (casual)

அவர் (அவரு [avarï] (honorific neutral / he) 

அவர்கள் (அவுங்க [avïnga]) - they-human (both singular neutral and plural) 

அது - it 

அவை (அதுங்க) - it- plural  

Basically when talking, you can use அவுங்க for any person regardless of gender as it is considered the polite form or to a group of people i.e plural form. When writing substitute that with அவர்கள். You can use அவன் and அவள் with friends or close ones.

Are they (plural) coming? 

(அவுங்க வராங்கலா?)

(ஆமா, அவுங்க வராங்க) - “yes, they are coming”

Is that person (he, she, they) coming? 

(அவுங்க வராங்கலா?)

ஆமா, அவுங்க வராங்க - “yes, that person (respectful) is coming” 

Is your older sister coming? 

(உன்னொட அக்கா வராங்கலா?)

(இல்ல, அவுங்க வரல) - “no, she (respectful) is not coming.” 

For men you can use both interchangeably. Notice the highlighted portions of the question sentences and the pronoun endings in the answers. 

Eg: 

Is your brother coming? 

(உனோட அன்னா வராங்கலா?)

(உனோட அன்னா வராரா?) 

I don’t know if he (respectful) will come or not.

(அவுங்க வருவாங்கலா மாட்டாங்கலா நு தெரில) 

(அவர் வருவாரா மாட்டாரா நு தெரில)

 Now அவர் needs a little bit of a history lesson. Ok so basically in classical Tamil அவர் was the plural form but we have a tendency to make the plural also a respectful form so then it became the respectful suffix but because we are incredibly polite and started using அவர் for everyone we needed a new plural form so we added the suffix -கள் to it (this is a universal plural suffix, attach it to anything and it becomes plural) அவர்கள் and that is now used for everyone to show respect 😂. So technically அவர் is also a neutral pronoun and in a lot of written works you’ll find it used as a respectful term regardless of gender but in the colloquial form it is now usually used to refer to men with respect. 

Eg: the word Avvaiyar ( ஔவை + ஆர் -> ஔவையார்; literally 'Respectable Woman'). 

Or திருனர் -> transgender (notice the அர் ending) 

Ok so this above info is important not just because it’s a fun fact but also cos it’s important later for nouns and verbs! 

So anytime you want to replace ஆன் or ஆள் with a neutral form you can just use ஆர். This is also a perfect segue for determiners and terminals. 

We learnt above that அவன் was he, but the more accurate translation would be “that man”. “This man” would then be இவன் and “which man?” எவன். 

Notice the particles அ, இ and எ. These are determiners and refer to the notions of far (அ), near (இ) and interrogation or questioning (எ) respectively. This rule has no exceptions so if I want to say there, here and where for example; it is அங்க, இங்க, எங்க. The table below shows this for all the pronouns. 

Each of the 6 pronouns have their corresponding terminal.Above we saw that the ending of questions and the pronouns have the same terminals, this is because verbs have (root + tense + terminal) 

வா + ந்த (past tense marker) + pronoun terminal 

ஆன், -ஆள், -ஆர், -ஆர்கள், -அது and -ன

வந்த (after Sandhi rules) + any of the above terminals 

அவன் வந்தான் ( he came ) 

அவள் வந்தாள் ( she came )

அவர் வந்தார் (they (sing)/ he honorific came) 

அவர்கள் வந்தார்கள் (they (pl)/sing honorific came) 

அது வந்தது (it came) 

அவை வந்தன (it (pl) came) 

This rule is what is referred to when it is said that there is grammatical gender in this language. There is gender but not in the abstract sense, it’s that verbs will agree with the type of gender a being belongs to. 

Note: Do let me know if there are any errors in spelling or if there are any other issues, I’m still learning and this is just my way of comprehending all the info!