Colloquial Tamil

The Complete Course for Beginners

E. Annamalai, R.E. Asher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317304777
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Colloquial Tamil is easy to use and completely up to date!

Specially written by experienced teachers for self-study or class use, the course offers a step-by-step approach to spoken Tamil. While emphasis is placed on colloquial spoken Tamil, you are given a useful introduction to formal speech and the written language as well.

What makes Colloquial Tamil your best choice in personal language learning?

• Emphasis on authentic conversational language
• Clear explanations on how to pronounce and write the language
• Helpful grammar notes and reference grammar
• Comprehensive vocabulary lists (Tamil-English and English-Tamil)
• Lively illustrations and fascinating cultural insights throughout

By the end of this rewarding course, you will be able to communicate confidently and effectively in Tamil in a broad range of everyday situations.

Audio material to accompany the course is available to download free in MP3 format from www.routledge.com/cw/colloquials. Recorded by native speakers, the audio material features the dialogues and texts from the book and will help develop your listening and pronunciation skills.

1 en peeru Murugan

My name is Murugan

In this lesson you will learn to:

•	use simple greetings
•	introduce yourself
•	use personal pronouns
•	use verb forms that are appropriate to the different pronouns
•	ask questions
•	make requests
•	express politeness

Dialogue 1 (Audio 1: 9)

Arriving in Chennai

Robert Smith, on his first visit to India, is met at Chennai (Madras) airport by a student of a friend of his.

MURUGAN:	vanakkam. niinga Robert Smith-aa?
SMITH:	aamaa. naandaan Robert Smith. vanakkam.
MURUGAN:	en peeru Murugan. peeraasiriyar Madivaananoota maanavan.
SMITH:	romba magizcci.
MURUGAN:	vaanga, oottalukku poovoom. ange konjam ooyvu edunga.
SMITH:	sari. vaanga, poovoom.
MURUGAN:	Greetings. Are you Robert Smith?
SMITH:	Yes. I am Robert Smith. Greetings.
MURUGAN:	My name is Murugan. Professor Madhivanan’s student.
SMITH:	Pleased to meet you. (lit. Much pleasure)
MURUGAN:	Come. Let’s go to the hotel. You can rest up a bit. (lit. Take some rest there)
SMITH:	Fine. Come, let’s go.

Vocabulary

Pronunciation tips

1	The intonation rises slightly at the end of the sentence when it is a question.
2	g between vowels is commonly pronounced h.
3	Vowels i and e in the beginning of a word are pronounced with a preceding y tinge (e.g. ^yedu). Vowels u and o in the beginning
	of a word have a w tinge (e.g. ^wonga).
4	In a few phrases, n at the end of a word, when followed by a word beginning with p, is pronounced as m; e.g. en peeru is normally pronounced as em peeru (or even embeeru).
5	The word final u is not pronounced when followed by a vowel.

Language points

Greeting

vanakkam is an expression of greeting generally used in formal encounters with elders and equals. It signifies bowing, but the physical gesture which accompanies the expression is the placing of the palms of one’s hands together near the chest.

Case endings

English often relates nouns to verbs by the use of prepositions such as ‘to’, ‘in’, ‘by’, ‘of’, ‘from’. Very often, the equivalent of these in Tamil will be a ‘case’ ending or suffix added to a noun. Two such endings are introduced in this lesson (see the sections on ‘Genitive’ and ‘Dative’).

Genitive (possessive)

Pronouns of first and second person (‘I’, ‘we’, ‘you’) have two forms. One is when they occur without any case suffix, i.e. when they occur as the subject of a sentence. The other is when they occur with a case suffix. We shall call this the ‘non-subject’ form. The genitive (or possessive) case suffix is -ooda. This is optional for both nouns and pronouns, but you should learn to recognise it. It is more commonly omitted with pronouns. The pronouns mentioned have the second form (‘non-subject’) in the genitive even when the case suffix is omitted.

niinga you; onga your (...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 en peeru Murugan
• 2 naan viittukku pooreen
• 3 enna veenum?
• 4 haloo, naan Smith peesureen
• 5 mannikkanum, taamadamaa varradukku
• 6 Mahaabalipuram poovamaa?
• 7 niinga enge pooriinga?
• 8 niinga eppa Indiyaavukku vandiinga?
• 9 niinga pootturukkira dras
• 10 neettu oru kalyaanattukku pooyirundeen
• 11 nii enne paakka varakkuudaadaa
• 12 ende uuru Yaazppaanam
• 13 inda edattukku epdi pooradu?
• 14 enna sirikkiree?
• 15 naan Tamiznaattule rendu naaldaan irukka mudiyum
• 16 Tamizle oru siranda nuulu
• The Tamil alphabet
• Grammatical summary
• Key to exercises
• Tamil–English glossary
• English–Tamil glossary
• Index of grammatical terms