Chapter 2 Tamil Conversation
Tamil is a language with many dialects that vary in each geographical location. It also differs based on caste and socio-economic status of the people. In Tamil Nadu people call the dialects as “slang”. We will learn the most common dialect that is spoken in Tamil Nadu that we see in television and main stream movies.
In this chapter, we will learn some easy and essential conversations in Tamil. We will learn how to converse with people and exchange basic information and how to understand classroom expressions. We will learn some basic form that is essential to communicate and to learn Tamil.
It is essential to note the sentence structure in Tamil is different from English as we go through this chapter. The structure is Subject-Object-Verb for the most part. In spoken Tamil, certain words morph and are even completely replaced according to the dialect spoken.
I encourage all my heritage learners to learn the dialect of their family and ancestors as a tribute to them and to honor your heritage. Please remember no dialect is inferior or superior to another. Each and every dialect of Tamil needs to be preserved in the oral tradition. We are losing many dialects due to social and political reasons.
In this chapter, when we learn certain functions we will look at both the spoken and written aspect of the same. This will help learners who what to learn wither or both the skills better.
Goals of This Chapter:
- To learn how to greet and introduce oneself.
- To learn how to exchange basic information during a conversation.
- To learn basic classroom requests, commands and communication skills.
- To learn how suffixes work in Tamil.
- To learn to change from singular to plural in Tamil using suffixes.
- To learn case suffixes in Tamil.
- To learn the various uses “iru” (to be) in Tamil.
