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How can I learn Malayalam without a tutor | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Heinrich S. Groupie Germany Joined 6935 days ago 63 posts - 85 votes  Studies: French | Message 1 of 2 05 January 2010 at 3:04am | IP Logged |
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My whole family is from Kerala, India and they moved to the US a few years before I was born. Somehow I ended up with the horrible middle ground of being able to understand it perfectly (they basically only speak to me in Malayalam) but not able to say a single word. I just don't have the recall. I can sit there and try to translate a word from English for minutes and minutes and as soon as a family member says it in Malayalam I'll feel very stupid. I've been to India dozens of times and the same pattern happens there, although when I'm there for a few months, my recall becomes slightly better, but still not good enough to have a conversation.
I've tried on numerous occasions to learn it colloquially from my family but failed every time because all they have are books like See Spot Run and I have no reason to remember the word for dog or coconut tree. None of the children's books have words that I would possibly use in conversation with my family. I currently don't live anywhere near my family or anyone that I know that speaks Malayalam, so immersion isn't really going to work. What I really want is some sort of course or book that formally teaches Malayalam from English. I feel like I should have a huge leg up because I have the basic grammar and vocabulary hardcoded somewhere in my brain. I've tried this book, but it is actually for people who know Hindi and English, not English alone. Almost everything in the book is compared to Hindi words or letters, which I don't know. I've also tried the numerous "learn malayalam in x days" geocities websites, but none of them are actually finished. They mostly only have the extreme basic vocabulary too. Does anyone have any idea how I can accomplish this without hiring someone to teach me? I don't even know if there's anyone around here who could, but even if there was, I know there'd be no curriculum. I've just heard that there are Malayalam schools like Chinese or Hebrew schools. My local college has Hindi and Urdu but I've never seen any school that offered Malayalam. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6271 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 2 of 2 05 January 2010 at 1:51pm | IP Logged |
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I don't know. I don't think I have ever seen a "Teach Yourself Malayalam" type of book. The closest approach was an old textbook on Kannada or Kanarese, a related Dravidian language.
I knew someone from Kerala who wanted to learn Russian. His idea of learning it was drawing lines on Russian words in a textbook so thickly that they could no longer be read. I found this counter-intuitive, to say the least. I do not recommend the method. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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