Free online Kannada conversations for beginners

Kannada, less commonly known as Kannana or Kanarese,  is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by 72% people of Karnataka in the southwestern region of India. Of the 21.7 Million Kannada speaking population 86% is in Karnataka. The number of Kannada online users is expected to grow to 25 million by 2021. Kannada was awarded the status of a classical language in 2008 and is estimated to be as old as 2500 years old, thereby ranking it to be the third oldest language in India, after Sanskrit and Tamil. Kannada is one of the 22 official languages and 14 regional languages of India. 

There are about 20 spoken dialects of Kannada (Ethnologue). They are usually grouped into three major groups: Northern, Southern, and Central. All the dialects are influenced by the neighbouring languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and others. There is a considerable difference between the spoken and written forms of the language with regard to its phonology, grammar, and lexicon. Spoken Kannada has many regional dialects, while the written form remains relatively uniform. There are also a number of social varieties depending on caste or class. Colloquial Kannada has three dialects based on social class: Brahmin, non-Brahmin, and Untouchable. The standard or prestigious, variety is based on the middle-class, educated Brahmin dialect of the Mysore-Bangalore area. The sound system of Kannada is similar to that of other Dravidian languages. Kannada is a highly inflected language with a grammar that is similar to that of Tamil. Like other Dravidian languages, it is agglutinative, which means that suffixes are added to stems to derive new words and to express various grammatical relationships. The standard word order in Kannada is Subject-Object-Verb. Kannada’s vocabulary is Dravidian in nature. It has been influenced by Sanskrit, Portuguese, and English.

Hi or Hello: Namaskara or Namasthe

How are you?: Hegiddeera?

I am fine: Chennagiddeeni.

Hope you are fine: Chennagiddeera?

And, what’s up?: Matte, enu samachara?

What is your name?: Nimma hesarenu?

My name is Rama: Nanna hesaru Rama.

Where is your house?: Nimma mane elli?

My house is in Jayanagara: Nanna mane Jayanagaradalli.

Had your breakfast?: thindi aitha? or Tiffin aitha?

Yes..breakfast over: thindi aithu.

Had your lunch or dinner?: Oota aitha? or Oota madidra?

Yes..had my lunch: Nanna oota aithu.

Had your coffee?: Coffee aitha? or Coffee kududra?

Yes..Had coffee: Coffee aithu or Coffee kudide.

I am learning Kannada: Naanu Kannada kalitha iddeeni

I know a little Kannada: Nanage swalpa swalpa Kannada barutte

See you, bye: Matte sigona, barthini 

See you tomorrow: Naale sigona.

Amoghavarsha I (Amoghavarsha Nrupathunga I, also known as Ashoka of the South) (r.814–878 CE) a Rashtrakuta emperor who was an accomplished poet and scholar, wrote (or co-authored) the Kavirajamarga, the earliest extant literary work in Kannada. Many Kannada and Sanskrit scholars prospered during his rule, including the great Indian mathematician Mahaviracharya(who wrote Ganita-sara-samgraha), Jinasena, Virasena, Shakatayan and Sri Vijaya (a Kannada language theorist). Amoghavarsha seems to have entertained the highest admiration for the language, literature and culture of the Kannada people as testified to in the text Kavirajamarga.

Chavundaraya’s writing, Chavundaraya Purana, is the second oldest existing work in prose style in Kannada and is a summary of the Sanskrit works, Adipurana and Uttarapurana, written by Jinasena and Gunabhadra during his rule. The prose work, composed in lucid Kannada, was meant mainly for the common man and avoided any reference to complicated elements of Jain doctrines and philosophy. 

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