How to Speak Malayalam | Tips

How to Speak Malayalam | Tips

        The limits of my language mean the limits of my world
                                                            - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Are you searching for a quick guide to learn to speak Malayalam? Then you are in the right place.  To learn basic Malayalam to an expert level, you need to be patient and willing to invest some time in learning because it would be a little tough at first especially if you are a foreigner.

unlike many other Indian languages Malayalam language comes under the Dravidian family along with the sister languages called Tamil, Kannada, Telegu...etcetera. If you are a South Indian but from other states, it would be somewhat easy to learn Malayalam. Because most of the South Indian languages share a common root. Most specifically Tamil people can learn and understand Malayalam because the Malayalam language is originated from Tamil and Sanskrit. 

But if you are from North India or from another foreign country it would be a little tough. But with practice and determination, you can learn this language.

In this article, I will give you some tips so can learn this language.

•   Listen

Like any other language, the first step to learn to speak Malayalam is to listen to the language like a child. A child learns his mother tongue by just listening to his surroundings. 

Listening is considered as the best technique to improve any language acquisition even passive listening will help to learn a new language. so always find a way to listen to more Malayalam language like by watching movies, listening to FM radio...etcetera, 

And surround yourself with Malayalam speaking people if you can. If you don't find any Malayalam speaking people near you, you can always check out YouTube channels. There are so many interesting Malayalam YouTubers are out there like Arjyou, Get Roast with Gaya3, Mallu analyst, Karthik Surya so on

When you listening to Malayalam you will unconsciously pick up a lot of pieces of information that will hugely influence the language learning process. 

Consider if you are a Malayalam learner at an advanced level and if you haven't heard some specific word it will become more difficult to learn them when you read or write. So it is always a good idea to listen more.

Another fact is that if you want your children to learn the Malayalam language, this listening technique will work great because their brain is very active in learning new languages.

• Learn Vocabulary

Before working on this point you should always remember that learning a word by itself is not a good idea in order to learn Malayalam or any other language. Of course, you need to remember word meaning but you also need to learn how that word is used in a sentence or phrase.

We almost never use a word without context and in this way find the usage of other words inside the sentence, which will help you remember the word you are trying to learn and better understand the correct usage of it in certain situations. 

The idea is here is quite simple, speak with a phrase not with words itself.

The next tip is not don't memorize a huge list of words, it will only make your brain confused. it is better to find a word that you need, instead of learning a list of words at a time.

Another important tip is to write the words down as much as you can it will definitely help you to remember words much better

• Watch a lot of Malayalam movies

It is one of the effective ways to understand Malayalam.at least you will familiarize yourself with the words and it's pronunciation. you will never get bored by watching movies at the same time you will learn the language bit by bit subconsciously.

But for beginners watching a Malayalam movie without subtitles is very difficult to understand the language. For beginners, always try to watch a  Malayalam movie which is dubbed from your native language movie.

The idea behind this technique is that if you knew the story and every line in that movie by heart, so it would be comprehensible without any sound at all. Watch that beloved movie which is dubbed in Malayalam. And if you watch that movie a few times you will learn a lot of new words every time you watch them.

And another simple tip is always to start with animated movies or less complicated movies than complicated dramas.

• Listen to Malayalam songs with lyrics

Is it possible to learn Malayalam vocabulary from music? My short answer is yes! but of course, it has its own limitations too. This method is mainly useful when you try to increase your listening skills in the Malayalam language. And hearing individual words that make up the lyrics of the song that you listen also improves the vocabulary.

And always remember that when you learning a new word you can translate them and try to find the sentences in which the word is used. so you can understand how these words can be used. and if you can practice those sentences by saying out loud, it will be very helpful to improve Malayalam speaking skills.

• Use social media and apps

Nowadays you can find a lot of language learning apps and sites on the internet like Duolingo, Memrise...etcetera.
Use those apps from Google or any other platform to improve your Malayalam speaking skills. using those apps you can analyze your speaking skill by yourself. Some lots are available on the internet.