How to make more progress in Kannada?
Kannada is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in south western region of India. The language is also spoken by linguistic minorities in the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Kerala and Goa; and also by Kannadigas abroad. The language had roughly 43 million native speakers by 2011. Kannada is also spoken as a second and third language by over 12.9 million non-native speakers in Karnataka, which adds up to 56.9 million speakers. In fact, this language like other languages can teach you about South Indian culture, religious beliefs and the still prevalent value system in Indian society. The Kannada language is not a tough language to learn. Instead, it is easy to learn with a little effort and discipline.
Before you start learning this language, clear a few questions to yourself. Find out answers to your need for learning the language, your end objective, how much time can you devote on the language on an everyday basis and many more. The questions and their answers would vary from person to person. These are the general questions but you may have specific questions that decide/influence your learning!
So before we proceed let us clear our basic premise. We are assuming you have either decided or are already on the path of learning Kannada and want to make further progress to learn Kannada. In this blog, I will try to answer these questions:
Practice: We all know great sportsmen like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, P T Usha etc. How did they become perfect in their respective fields? Did anyone motivate them? Self-motivation and practising is the key. Practice makes a person perfect. There is no easy route. There’s no trick to learn fast but practice.
Self Talk. Self Talk is one of the most relevant and useful technique, that you can gain benefit from! Talk to yourself in front of a mirror or with your pet or your friend/sibling to grow more confident talking. You could also record yourself while talking and playback for yourself to understand your mistake. Alternatively, you could ask, a proficient Kannada speaker to give you feedback on how you are speaking. He/she can observe you and would give their feedback to you.
Movies: I recommend you watch Kannada movies to improve your communication skills. People would say that well they do not have time to watch a movie for that long. Understable but there’s still something you can do! Start watching a movie in bits and parts in your spare time. Hear the words carefully and try to ape them, along with the accent they are delivered in. Mimicking is an art that has originated from the same technique!
Audiobooks: Audiobooks are a good tool to learn the Kannada language. There are many Audiobooks available online in the Kannada language which you can use to improve your communication in this language. A few being, Samskara (available on Amazon), Subbana (available on Amazon), Mandovi (available on Amazon) and many more.
Finally,
There are so many other ways also available like watching serials in Kannada etc. that can speed up your learning. Do explore all other best practises learning better and quicker. You could also use Multibhashi an online Edutech platform that you can use to learn Kannada. Wish you all the best!