Learn Tamil in 30 days: beginners meet that promise everywhere, and it deserves a straight answer. In thirty days you can learn to read the Tamil script, introduce yourself, manage a short polite exchange and pick out far more of a Tamil film than you could before. You won't be fluent. Tamil has a written literature going back more than two thousand years and doesn't hand itself over in a month, but a month used well gets you further than most people expect, and this guide shows how to use it.
Where Tamil is spoken
Tamil is the language of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and of Puducherry, an official language of Sri Lanka alongside Sinhala, and one of the four official languages of Singapore. It's widely spoken in Malaysia, and the diaspora reaches from Toronto and London to South Africa, Mauritius and the Gulf. Something like 80 million people speak it as a first language.
It belongs to the Dravidian family, so it isn't related to Hindi, or to English. In 2004 Tamil became the first language India officially declared classical, a title earned by that long, unbroken literary tradition. Tamil speakers are proud of it, and it shows.
How to learn Tamil script
The Tamil script is more compact than it looks. The traditional count gives 247 letters: 12 vowels, 18 consonants, 216 combinations of the two, and one special letter, ஃ. Tamil grammar calls the vowels உயிர் (uyir, life), the consonants மெய் (mey, body) and the combinations உயிர்மெய் (uyirmey), life-body. You don't memorise 216 combinations one by one. You learn the 12 vowels, the 18 consonants and the vowel signs, and most combinations follow. The exceptions are the u and ū forms, which change shape from consonant to consonant and simply have to be learned.
A dot above a consonant, the pulli, removes its vowel: க is ka, க் is just k. There's no top line as in Hindi, and no separate letters for aspirated sounds. Tamil doesn't even keep separate letters for k and g: க is k at the start of a word and softens to g between vowels, so மகன் (son) is said magan. A few extra letters, such as ஜ (ja) and ஷ (sha), exist for borrowed words.
Where Tamil does insist on distinctions, they're ones English doesn't make:
| Sound | Letters | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| n | ந, ன, ண | the first two sound practically alike (ந mostly starts a word, ன comes inside or at the end); ண is said with the tongue curled back |
| l | ல, ள, ழ | a plain l, a curled-back l, and the famous zh of தமிழ் (Tamizh), something between an r and an l |
| r | ர, ற | a light tap and a firmer trill; after ன the pair is said ndr, so நன்றி (thank you) is nandri |
Spoken Tamil and written Tamil
The other thing to know early is that Tamil has two registers. The formal language is used in books, news broadcasts and official signs; the spoken language is used at home, on the street and in films, and it shortens words a lot. Written இருக்கிறது (irukkiradhu, "there is" or "it is") becomes irukku in speech, and written நான் வருகிறேன் (naan varugiren, "I'm coming") becomes naan varen. Learn to read the formal forms and to speak the spoken ones, and don't be alarmed when they don't match.
The grammar itself is logical but long-winded, because Tamil builds words by adding endings. வீடு (veedu) is a house, வீட்டில் (veettil) is "in the house" and வீட்டுக்கு (veettukku) is "to the house". The verb comes last and its ending tells you who's acting, so the pronoun is often dropped: நான் தமிழ் படிக்கிறேன் (naan tamizh padikkiren) is "I'm studying Tamil", and படிக்கிறேன் on its own would do. Use நீங்கள் (neengal) for "you" with anyone you don't know well; நீ (nee) is for friends and children.
