- Tamil has a distinction between Colloquial Tamil and Formal Tamil. While this distinction can be found in other languages like Chinese and Malay, Formal Tamil was defined by the Nannuul, written in the 13th Century.
Resources for learning Tamil
A summary of some resources are on: https://www.alllanguageresources.com/tamil/
There’s a learning Tamil subreddit that opened up in June 2021!
Books
- Spoken Tamil for Absolute Beginners. The same author also wrote “Spoken Telugu for Absolute Beginners”, which you can find on the [[Telugu]] page.
- Colloquial Tamil. You can access the audio for free on Routledge textbooks. The audio is at native speaking speed, so don’t be put off if you can’t pick out words at first.
- ‘Learning Tamil by yourself, Classical to Contemporary, Literary and Colloquial’ by Jeyapandium Kottalam. You can find this book on amazon
- English (USA) – Tamil for beginners: A book in 2 languages (Multilingual Edition)
- A Practical Course to Learn Tamil for Absolute Beginners: Standard and Colloquial
- Free: **Volume I of Tamil Through English/Hindi **
- If you can find a copy, there’s Conversational Tamil by Beinstein Judith, an old book used to train foreign service staff. It uses Latin script.
Resources for reading Tamilian script
- This one’s technically a website. It’s an online course by E. Annamalai. While it’s geared towards teachers, the ‘elementary texts’ and ‘basic Tamil reader’ are useful supplementary material and can help you with reading. Access the site here
- Tamil Script: Learner’s Manual, a website teaching Tamil script based on a Tamil teacher’s experience teaching Tamil in the University of Texas, Austin.
- This playlist from The Tamil Channel focuses on reading. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have an English translation, but it’s still useful.
Audiobooks
There’s been a boom in Tamil Audiobooks from actors and actresses, but I’m still trying to find text to accompany the books (Update: See playlist of stories for kids below).
- Playlist of stories for kids with audio and script. You can find the website, Bookbox, here
Apps
- “Learn Tamil Through English”. This app comes with 500+ sentences of Tamil and English. This app has a book version that’s around 2 or 3 dollars. It’s worth buying because it has English, Transliteration, and Script.
- In the same vein, “Learn Tamil in 30 days” by Jegtheesh N. has Tamil and English sentences. This one has both english script for Tamil AND the Tamil script, so I’ll use it a little later.
- When in doubt, look for bible translations. Tamil Bible has a parallel translation.
Communities
Centre for Singapore Tamil Culture, a non-profit organisation dedicated to sustaining, sharing, and studying Tamil culture and building bridges between cultures in Singapore.
Websites
- Tamilnadu School Textbooks
- The Agile Manifesto in Tamil. This isn’t a language learning site, but since the Agile manifesto is in different languages, reading it in Tamil means you know the meaning while being able to read the text.
- Sangam Tamil Literature: Sangam Tamil Books the easy way. This author has created a series of websites, including learn sangam tamil and thirukkural in english
- Educational Tamil Short Stories for Kids
- Fabricius Tamil and English Dictionary
- Tamil Vocabulary Word List
- Tamil Kids Story
Youtube
- The Tamil Channel
- Irava pagala Tamil Song with Tamil lyrics, title says it all! Good for listening and Tamil script reading.
- Asku Maaro lyrics in Tamil and English transliteration, again, title says it all! Sadly it does not have English translation, just transliteration.
These 3 songs below are National Day Songs of Singapore. You can find the lyrics on wikipedia. It makes for good listening practice!
- Munnaeru Vaalibaa, official Tamil community song taught in Singapore, this one performed by the Singapore Symphony. The important bit is that there’s lyrics in English script with English translation in the description.
- Singai Naadu, this Tamil Singapore National Day song comes with lyrics, transliteration, AND English translation (in the description)!
- Engkal Singapore comes with a short burst of Tamil rapping!
- Wirally Tamil, a channel that makes short films with conversations in Tamil. Some of them have English subtitles!
- This subreddit post from the Learning Tamil subreddit (See above) has links to several videos.