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-   -   How to learn conversational Kannada? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/68738-how-learn-conversational-kannada-2.html)

That is correct, many of my colleagues from AP know to converse in good Kannada. I can't make out any difference whethere they are locals or not.

'Rand Yellir kudiyayo!' is what I learnt few days back. I needed some soft coconut water to visit my colleague in St. Johns.

Very witty:uncontrol
you might find it difficult to twist your tongue initially, but eventually you will get used to it.
PS: I appreciate you showing interest in our local language:). Wish more and more people do so.

I learned Kannada by taking free tuitions to poor school children (7 - 10 std.) studying in Kannada medium schools. Initially a lot of my interaction was using drawings/pictures and English. And then they would teach me the equivalent Kannada words/phrases etc. After a couple of months I could manage to speak quite fluently. Parallel to that I also learnt to read and write Kannada and started reading newspaper/magazines/cartoon books etc.

Another way to learn is by watching a lot of Kannada movies.

@Su-47 Appreciate the very thought of you wanting to learn the local language. It will always be an advantage for a non localite residing in karnataka if he/ she speaks the local language as it is beneficial to both.
It's a very rich language ( 7 Gyaan peet/ Gnana peeta for writers in this Language) and a language disintegrating/ Dying at a faster rate.

For a person born and brought up in Bangalore the Southern languages including Hindi are quite easy to pick up as we have had some exposure while we grew up. Malayalam is a language I could not pickup and its the same with a lot of my friends also.

As Samurai rightly pointed out, Kannada has a lot of words common with Hindi and you will be surprised with the similarities. Telugu has an almost similar script to that of Kannada. The Bangalore Kannada is a bit easy as you can use a lot of English words to express yourself more specific and effectively.

For example: I dont know the equivalent word for specific and have rarely used a kannada equivalent word while conversing :D


The Best way to learn Kannada is to start speaking to someone in kannada and let him/her correct your mistakes. Also, Please watch some kannada serials like T N Sitaram's where you will find over time that the language and the content to be quite appealing. Keep away from kannada movies as the quality is almost non existant. Old kannada songs are quite melodious.

My wife is a Teluguite and she has some printouts which has some basic sentences used in daily usage along with the English equivalent. She is also learning.

If she has a soft copy, will share it with you.

The script might be a bit tough actually but nothing like it if you learn itclap:

Really appreciate the fact that you want to learn the local language. :thumbs up

You can try different methods, but the best would be if there is someone who can talk to you in Kannada.

Once you understand the language constructs, sentence formation etc, then it will be easy for you to interact with more people. It doesn't matter if you use English words (for nouns), you can replace them with Kannada words as and when you learn them.

Watching Kannada channels, movies will help but don't just rely on them. Again, if you are watching them alone, it's not going to be of much help.

All the best!

Start interacting with people who have limited education in the society - sabji wala, kaam wali bai, watchman etc and listen to them in Kannada and try understanding. Also speak to them without hesitation of getting corrected. see how you can improve Kannada in a jiffy.

Guys, Can you upload any information found on Kannada here please. It will be a lot of help for north indians like us to learn it.

Thanks a ton

Is that in Kannada or its in hindi the first Word :D. If yes for the first part, i dont think that is right. El Neer is for Tender coconut and I donno what you meant for the other part.

" Eradu Eley Neer Kodi" E is pronounced as how you would use E in Eddy. People tend to use it as El Neer instead of Eley Neeru. The sentence means Give me 2 Tender Coconuts.

SU47, Okay, u can take a short cut to learning Kannada, there is this institute called School Of Languages where I learnt my basics in Kannada, you should know some broken words or understand some of the language then this will really help, I took a crash course for speaking Kannada for 3 months, 4 hrs a week, and I could understand the lingo much better, gradually in about a year from then I can speak pretty decent, just not prefect, that takes time and lot of conversing.
The trick in that school, you have to catch up with a teacher who speaks all languages, that made my life a lot easier, I however cannot read Kannada even now.

Thanks a lot for the overwhelming response guys, now some quick questions:
@blueraven: Where is this *School of Language* located?
@muni: Can you please tell the timing and channel name for the TV program you mentioned?

Another thought: Aren't there any good Kannada movies which have subtitles?

The bottom-line of the suggestions is to find a person with whom I can converse in Kannada. I pity my Kannadiga friends, they are gonna have a tough time...

SU47, try tune to some of the Kannada FM channel while driving, that will help a lot. Most of the FM channels use mix of Kannada and English/Hindi, so easier to follow.

In my appartment, we have organized a Kannada class, try some thing simillar in your residing area

:pHey stop insulting my teacher :D. Yeah he did not go to school and is a bit rough a local.
Its still 'Rend Yellir Kud'. :rules:

Anyone challenging that is not a true Kannadiga (of course that is tamil)(colon p , sigh 2 smilies limit)
'Kudiuyayo' would be a little rough is what I know.
Hey at the end, I got the 2 tender coconuts. That is what matters no ?

When I moved to Bangalore in those olden days more than 10 years back, initially I was able to manage with Tamil because most of the retailers who I used to visit as part of my work were comfortable in Tamil and so was the local retailers of the area I used to stay (Cox Town) because I used to handle the Cantontment part of Bangalore.

But slowly I started moving around the City area which meant I had to start learning Kannada by default not that I had any inhibitions in learning the language. In about 3 months I started conversing in Kannada decently and in about 6 months I was comfortable enough to converse in Kannada with all my Kannada speaking colleagues at office.

The way I did was to observe how people were speaking especially in the work context which helped in identifying the gist of what was being conversed about. Its the same I used strategy I used to pick up my understanding of Bangla because my first job was in a Bengali company (Ananda Bazaar Patrika).

Shamelessly observe people when they converse and slowly you could start to relate words to meanings, you might not get the pronunciation right but you would know how the words sound.

The other thing is to find someone who could help you in correcting you and possibly help you in initial conversation. Here again I had couple of office colleagues who were hardcore Rajkumar fans but used to know Tamil well so when they realized I was trying to pick up Kannada they made it a point to help me convers in Kannada and Tamil.

Haha..Rend is Tamil/ Telugu/ Malayalam for 2( Rendu, Rendey whatever). So The AP guys have used the telugu 2 then :D


Hey! am not challenging as you have put a curse on the kannadiga part :uncontrol I concede.

Actually the two in Telugu is more like Rondu isnt it...which is very apparent when a Telugu person speaks in Tamil.