Quiz #1 for Lesson #1 (അ ആ)

As a fun exercise, let's try to guess the following names that start with these letters (i.e. person / place associated with the name written in Malayalam but with some English clues included):

1. A K അന്തോണി (central minister, as pronounced in Thamizh and not English)

2. ആദം & ഹവ്വ (First man & woman, Biblical)

3. അടൽ ബിഹാരി വാജ്‌പേയി (first name of former PM, BJP)

4. ആഫ്രിക്ക (dark continent, "இருண்ட கண்டம்")

5. അമേരിക്ക (U.S. of)

6. അഡ്‌ലൈഡ് (Oval, Cricket)

7. ആദി ഭഗവന് (Thiruvalluvar - Ameer connection)

8. അച്ചുവിന്റെ അമ്മ (Sathyan AnthikkAd - Meera Jasmine -Oorvashi -IR)

9. ആലപ്പുഴ (Kerala town / district of famous snake boat race)

10. ആലുവ (Another Kerala town near Ernakulam, famous for Sivarathri, on the banks of Periyar river)

Hopefully these are easy to crack!

Lesson 1 - First two vowels - അ, ആ

First two vowels (a,A / அ,ஆ / अ,आ / അ, ആ)

The first two vowels are same like Thamizh / Hindi and I've given the vowels in four languages above for convenience.

Since English vowels are not phonetic, it's preferable to look at the corresponding Thamizh or Hindi to understand how it sounds

The first Malayalam letter in somewhat bigger font is given below, along with some words and their corresponding renderings in other languages as well as meanings.

അ


is the first letter.

Some words that start with this letter:
അമ്മ - அம்ம - अम्म - amma -MOTHER
അച്ഛന്‍ -அச்சன் - अच्छन - achchan - FATHER
അക്ഷരം -அக்ஷரம் -अक्षरम - aksharam - ALPHABET
അതിസുന്ദരി -அதிசுந்தரி -अतिसुन्दरि -athi sundhari - VERY BEAUTIFUL (WOMAN)

Now the interesting part - pictures of a couple of vinyl covers
You'll be able to spot the letter അ in them easily as these movie titles START with that letter
First one, same "mother" word, amma / അമ്മ


Another one - with a picture of Kamalahasan & Lakshmi, having the same first letter but a juicier title

anthi veyilile ponnu / അന്തി വെയിലിലെ പൊന്ന്



BTW, if someone wants the vinyl cover pic of more films, please go to musicalaya.net

The second Malayalam letter is just the extended version of that first letter.

ആ

Some words that start with this letter :
ആ - This letter itself is also a word and has meaning - ஆ / आ / aa / THAT
ആദ്യം -ஆத்யம் / आद्यं / aadhyam / FIRST
ആണ്‍ -ஆண் /आण / aan / MALE
ആവശ്യം -ஆவஷ்யம் / आवश्यम/ aavashyam / NEED

Let me post the vinyl cover pics below the line :)

Try to focus only on the first letter for now as you'll have plenty of time to worry about the rest of the characters in the coming days.

In learning to read, it's very important to memorize how a particular character looks - if necessary by writing ourselves on paper / paintbrush etc to embed in the mind. Let me come to that in another post today as to how to "exercise" / "practice"

Two vinyl covers for this letter too, one being a rAsA one

aa raathri / ആ രാത്രി (meaning "that night", music by Ilayaraja, having the lovely SJ number kiLiyE kiLiyE)

 aa nimisham / ആ നിമിഷം (meaning "that minute" or "that moment")

 As I said before, there are tons of other vinyl covers that start with ആ in the musicalaya website and please look at them to familiarize and embed this character in mind

Now, exercise (until we hit our Lesson 2 later on) :

Go to this website:http://www.google.com/intl/ml/inputtools/cloud/try/

Type those 8 words (4 each for അ and ആ) a few times, while also loudly telling those words

That's all

(Challenge exercise : Instead of going to google, take a pen / paper and write down those eight words)

Learn to READ Malayalam - Introduction

Like most Indian languages, Malayalam too has vowels & consonants in separate groups and a set of symbols to indicate the "combinations" (called உயிர்மெய் "uyir mey" in Thamizh).

 

While many Malayalam words are also common to Thamizh (well, some Malayalam alphabets even resemble Thamizh letters), the Malayalam alphabets are "designed / assembled / grouped" mostly like vadamozhi / Hindi. (For example, different characters for ka / kha / ga / gha / nga are in one set, which is like Hindi and unlike Thamizh.)

That way, to get the Malayalam READING skill, if someone knows Hindi alphabets, it's an advantage.

If someone knows only English / Thamizh, they need to embrace this new concept for consonants.

However, the good thing is, we'll first start with vowels - which is more or less like Thamizh!

Note: 
This one is a great resource - the google transliteration tool for Malayalam and I would encourage everyone to use it freely for practicing the words that we'll be using in this course - at least 5 minutes a day (you don't have to know Malayalam, all that is needed is only English typing):
http://www.google.com/intl/ml/inputtools/cloud/try/

Purpose

This blog is with a purpose to capture the Malayalam Reading Lessons / Exercises / Quizzes that I am posting in a forum currently.

The posts will be organized in this form, for each lesson:

• Lesson / Exercise in one blog post
• Followed by quiz in the second blog post
• And then, solutions to the quiz in the third blog post

For detailed discussions, Q & A etc, the readers are encouraged to go directly to the forum (link below) and check the contents:

http://ilayaraja.forumms.net/t93-learn-to-read-malayalam-using-vinyl-lp-record-covers-and-such-movie-based-resources

No comments / discussions are intended to be carried out in this blog. Those will be handled in that forum ONLY!

That way, this blog is more of a place-holder / back-up kind.

This will also serve as a resource for someone who wants to recall something quickly as things are organized / indexed here. That way, it could help to check specific details without walking through pages of discussion.

Thank you for visiting!