Lesson 1: vanakkam!

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Telling "vanakkam" with this posture is very common among Tamil people.

Let us begin the tutorial by knowing how to greet someone in Tamil. There is a universal greeting which you can use it anywhere and anytime. Just say, vanakkam! Traditionally, people greet with this word as they bow and join the hands to mark respect. Look at the above picture to figure it out. Unlike English, there are no greetings in Classical Tamil like good morning, good afternoon etc. The same word was used disregarding the time of speech. But in Modern Tamil, people tend to adopt the English style of greeting. New greetings are introduced and they are common in TV shows and radio programs, although colloquially they are heard very rarely. Read out the following greetings and learn its meaning. Try to use it when talking to Tamil people.

kálai vanakkam - morning greeting
madhiya vanakkam - afternoon greeting
málai vanakkam - evening greeting
iravu vanakkam - night greeting

You can also add the word iniya (literally, sweet) before all of the greetings above to make it sound more pleasing.

Telling who and how someone is
'I am' is nán and 'I am not' is nán illa. Notice that the be-verb 'am' is omitted in Tamil. It does not mean that it has no be-verbs. Grammatically speaking, be-verbs are avoided when telling who someone or what something is. Naturally, Tamil needs be-verbs while explaining how someone or something is. I explain this phenomenon later in this post. Just for now, practise the following sentences.

nán Guhan I am Guhan
nán oru ásiriyan I am a teacher

nán Valli I am Valli
nán oru ásiriyai I am a teacher

As clearly seen, oru is the indefinite article 'a'. Tamil has no definite article 'the'; instead, andha (literally that) is used. Notice that Guhan is a male. So, he says that he is a teacher using masculine form, ásiriyan. Valli is a female and hence, she uses feminine form, ásiriyai. In Tamil, most of the common nouns have -an suffix for masculine and -ai suffix for feminine. This distinction is also found in English; for example: actor and actress.

Telling how someone is, requires be-verb in Tamil. irukkén is used for 'am'. So, nán irukkén means 'I am'. To explain how you are, simply add irukkén at the end of the sentence. Read out the following sentences for practice.

nán sandhósamá irukkén I am happy
nán oyaramá irukkén I am tall

If you add prefix to a noun, it becomes an adjective in Tamil. In this case, sandhósam is happiness and  oyaram is height. To negate the above sentence, just replace irukkén with illa (no).

nán Guhan illa I am not Guhan
nán oru ásiriyan illa I am not a teacher

nán sandhósamá illa I am not happy
nán oyaramá illa I am not tall

My and mine
The word ennóda means both my and mine.

ennóda pér Guhan My name is Guhan
ennóda vídu romba perusu My house is very big

Asking simple questions
Asking Yes/No type question is very easy in Tamil. You can simply append -á to nouns and -vá to adjectives in a sentence to convert it as a question. Carefully read out the following example sentences to get get a clear idea.

nán Guhan I am Guhan
nán Guhaná? Am I Guhan?

nán sandhósamá irukkén I am happy
nán sandhósamává irukkén? Am I happy?

You can also add enna (what) before the noun or adjective which is under question. It will not affect the meaning, anyway. So both, nán Guhaná? and nán enna Guhaná? mean the same.

You
 Let us now learn how to begin a real conversation in Tamil. We need nínga 'you' and the verb irukkínga 'are' while we directly refer the listener (In grammatical jargon, second person).

nínga Guhaná? Are you Guhan?
nínga oru tíchará? Are you a teacher?

Well, let us pause here and consider the second sentence. It contains a word which sounds like English. Yes, tíchar came from the English word 'teacher'. Tamil people casually use English words in their everyday speech. This form of speech is often refered to as 'Tanglish'. Tanglish also contains words from other languages like Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Telugu and Portuguese. The word sandhósam is actually a Telugu word which in turn rooted from Sanskrit. The Tamil equivalent of the word sandhósam is magizhtchi which is now used only in classical form of Tamil.

 Okay. Let us continue learning the word 'you'. Let us try to use irukkínga 'are' along with nínga 'you' in the example sentences.

nínga sandhósamá irukkínga You are happy
nínga oyaramá irukkínga You are tall

What will you do if you have to negate the above sentences? The answer is easy. Simply replace irukkínga with illa.



nínga sandhósamá illa You are not happy
nínga oyaramá illa You are not tall


Asking more questions
Until now, you know enna 'what' turns a sentence into a question. But now, we are going to see its second meaning - 'what?'. Similarly, endha means 'which?', epdi means 'how?' and yáru means 'who?'.

ennóda vélai enna? What is job?

nán epdi irukkén? How am I?

ennóda péná endha kalar? Which color is my pen?

nínga yáru? Who are you?
nán Guhan I am Guhan

Valli yáru? Who is Valli?
Valli oru ásiriyai Valli is a teacher

Dialog

Guhan   kálai vanakkam! epdi irukkínga, Valli?
Valli      kálai vanakkam! nán nalla irukkén, nandri. Sivá yáru?
Guhan   Sivá ennóda mánavan.
Valli      Sivá nalla paiyaná?
Guhan   ámá, Sivá nalla paiyan.

Guhan   Good morning! How are you, Valli?
Valli      Good morning! I'm fine, thanks. Who is Siva?
Guhan   Siva is my student.
Valli      Is Siva a good boy?
Guhan   Yes, Siva is a good boy.

Vocabulary Listing

ámá   yes
ásiriyai   fem. teacher 
ásiriyan  mas. teacher
endha   which
ennóda   my, mine
epdi   how
illa   no
iniya   sweet
iravu   night
irukkén   am
irukkínga   (you) are
kalar   color
kálai   morning
madhiyam   afternoon   
magizhtchi   happiness
málai   evening
mánavan   student
nalla   good
nallá   fine
nandri   thanks
nán  I
nínga   you
oru   a
oyaram   height
paiyan   boy
perusu   big
péna   pen
romba   very
sandhósam   happiness
tíchar   teacher
vanakkam   greetings
vélai   job, work
vídu   house
yáru   who

Welcome visitors!

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Thank you very much for visiting my blog. The actual blog post will start soon. I am now working on creating pages in this blog that will guide you through out it. Please visit, About This Blog and The Language & the People for now. I am going to teach you spoken Tamil using my own transliteration system. Please, take a look by clicking here. Thank you once again!