Although it was only my third class, my teacher feels more familiar. There is a pattern that he has managed to establish for our classes. It’ll commence with a short reading test, where I will struggle with some words, and then move toward fresh things.
Yesterday’s class started off with:
| “ನದಿ – ನದ”ದ ನೆಲೆ |
| ನಾಲೆ ಅಲ್ಲಿ – ನದಿ ಎಲ್ಲಿ? |
| ನೀಲಿ ನೂಲು |
| ನವೀನ ನೂತನ ದಿನ |
| ಲೀಲಾಲೋಲ ಲಲಿತ ಲತಾಂಗಿ |
| ನಾನು ನಾವು ನೀನು ನೀವು |
| ದೀನ ನಾನು – ದಾನಿ ನೀನು |
| ದೇವ ದೇವತೆ |
| ದೆವ್ವವೋ – ದೇವರೋ? |
While I was able to identify the words with his help, especially on this one: ಲೀಲಾಲೋಲ ಲಲಿತ ಲತಾಂಗಿ, I realised I am really struggling with letters that repeat in the same sentence. I will overcome. There’s a real logic to the way we are moving forward in letter-identification at the minute. I’m learning the twelve forms of the same consonant together: the consonant itself, the consonant with a glottal stop, all of the short vowels, and the long vowels. If I write these out, surely they’ll imprint in my brain. Hopefully that will make future tests easier.
The pop culture references also continue. Today, I was introduced to ಆವು ಈವಿನ ನಾವು ನೀವಿge ಆನು ತಾನದ ತನನನ – da. ra. Bendre
While we embarked on a conversation about the Jnanpith Awards, I learned that it was not possible to decipher the deep meaning of Kannada poetry on the first listen – so another helpful explainer was provided to me. This is arguably the best part of class.
While I struggled with reading out tanana, I was reminded to say the word as if I would say it while speaking (which makes complete sense, since I know how to speak the language to some fluency). That’s inspiring some confidence in this journey.
Then I learned a lot of consonants. I had to cancel today’s class, but I already have an assignment waiting for me on WhatsApp. Next week should be super fun too, I’m looking forward to it.
Tejas Rao 