The alphabet is best learned through the site of DKC.

Wish list: we need complete audio files of all the alphabet lessons. Please go to This Site and listen. The audio quality could be better, but the woman does it well: she seems to exaggerate the intonation a little bit, and that's perfect for Kannada students.

Addendum for the first few lessons in 'Kannada in my Pocket'

Add. lesson 1

I    you he she we you they who?

ನಾನು  ನೀನು ಅವನು ಅವಳು ನಾವು ನೀವು ಅವರು ಯಾರು

na:nu ni:nu avanu avaLu na:vu ni:vu avaru ya:ru

my your his her our your their whose

ನನ್ನ ನೀನ್ನ ಅವನ ಅವಳ ನಮ್ಮ ನಿಮ್ಮ ಅವರ?? ಯಾರ

nanna ninna avana avaLa namma nimma ava:ra?? ya:ra

what? ಏನು

this ಇದು ಈ of this ಇದರ
that ಅದು ಆ of that ಅದರ

these ಈವು of these ಇವುಗಳ
those ಅವು of those ಅವುಗಳ್

ide - is illa - is not
ಆ at the end of sentence -> question

in front of = ಯಂದೆ (o=M)
what = ಏನು
now = ಈಗ
want = ಬೇಕು
where = ಎಲ್ಲಿ
how much/many? = ಎಷ್ಟು

from, by, with = ಇಂದ
to, for = ಇಗೆ / ಅಕ್ಕೆ
Dative suffix = 'ge' or 'ige'
colloquially: 'e' ಎ ending verb roots change into 'i' ಇ

I am ನಾನು ಇದ್ದೇನೆ / ಇದ್ದೀನಿ = colloquial
you are ನೀನು ಇದ್ದೀ (ಯೆ)
he/she is ಅವನು ಇದ್ದಾನೆ / ಅವಳು ಇದ್ದಾಳೆ (he is = ಇದ್ದಾನೆ idda:ne)

we are ನಾವು ಇದ್ದೇವೆ / ಇದೀವಿ = colloquial
you are ನೀವು ಇದ್ದೀರಿ
they are ಅವರು ಇದ್ದಾರೆ

Person/number/gender verb suffixes

I you he she we you they It is Those things are

ಏನೆ ಈಯೆ  ಆನೆ  ಆಳೆ  ಈವಿ   ಈರಿ   ಆರೆ   ಅದು ಇದೆ  ಅವು ಇವೆ

e:ne (coll. i:ni) i:ye a:ne a:Le e:ve (coll. i:vi) i:ri a:re adu ide avu ive

Content 2

Content 4

Content 6

The diverse study material I had at my disposal

Books
'Kannada Through English' by M.G. Nagaraja Rao
'Kannada In My Pocket' by the same
'Learn Kannada in 30 Days', chief ed. Krishna Gopal Vikal

Websites
http://www.ciil-learnkannada.net/ex.htm of the Directorate of Kannada and Culture (DKC)
http://kannadalearning.org/ - looked promising (with audio files) but has been stopped
http://www.kannadakasturi.com/ - dictionaries

Music
http://www.kannadaaudio.net:8000/  Kannada Kasthuri

It proved to be impossible to learn Kannada with any of these sources at itself, but put together they could almost form a Kannada language course for English speaking people.

Several elements will have to be added - see the wish list.

Furthermore we will have to make adjustments as to the presentation of the material mentioned above and it will have to made available in digital form.

I will coordinate the work, and with enough help, a quality course of Kannada for English-speaking foreigners will be the result.

Bartho Kriek
December 2008
Haarlem, The Netherlands

The link is: http://www.kannadaaudio.net:8000/ Right now it does not work, or the new ITunes-version contains a mistake.

The small dictionary of Kannada in my Pocket has a quite different order - drives me crazy every time.

ontara/antara/vantara (I don't know which spelling - ಅನ್ತರ, ವನ್ತರ, ಒನ್ತರ, ವೊನ್ತರ).

I started a file My Kannada Grammar (maybe I should switch to English), as you can see we westerners are used to I, you, he/she, we, you, they, and from Dutch (or English) to Kannada - and actually last night I dreamt a few Kannada words. Something like:

ಅನ್ತರ, ವನ್ತರ, ಒನ್ತರ, ವೊನ್ತರ
ನಾನು ಬೆನ್ಗಲೂರಲ್ಲಿ ಇದ್ದೇನೆ
Is it true the accent usually comes on the long vowels? Bengalúralli iddéne?

I would be very interested and very thankful for Kannada songs with English transcriptions (line by line, otherwise I'll get lost).

We could work towards a complementary package to what is there as for Kannada course material. I would add songs and texts then, don't you think that a good idea too?

 

 

-It's a pity this is not anymore on the internet for internet radio.
-An enormous boost would the beginning Kannada-student have if rather literal translations of songs would be added to Kannada songtexts. Portuguese singers do this all the time. And you know, lots of expressions really stick in your mind and function as buoys around which other speech elements start to coagulate. I would be really glad if I would have lots of Kannada cd's with these literal English translations. Maybe songs are the soul of a people...

Another problem I constantly encounter is the dictionary-problem. I don't understand the order of the characters at all. Is there actually a definite order in the Kannada alphabet that all Kannada dictionaries adhere to? I would like to learn it then. Still, because of the not always clearly aspirated/not-aspirated characters, it's hard for a student to look things up you heard in a song or on the radio, while exactly this should be easy.
A possibility is the phonetics as start letter and then the western alphabet order.

Kannada in my Pocket, may be be a good starting point for a modern course. But things have to be more structured, more in little learning chapters with little sentences, then exercises and audio files to check your own progress.

I believe in the natural method: lots of little parts of speech around which the speech learned is coagulating, giving in the end this snowball effect I have experienced before with Portuguese - a kind of miracle, really, when you start thinking and feeling the language.

 

Now I want to tell you what material I have and how we could go from there.
1. The book Kannada through English by Nagaraja Rao - this book I learned the alphabet with, but it has several flaws, the most important one being that it makes you learn a lot of word that don't stick in your mind because there is no social context (which is not opportune when learning the alphabet anyway). Furthermore: no visuals and no audio.
2. Kannada in 30 days - this book will be handy as a practising instrument once people know the language, it's almost like a grammar book with some sentences
3. Learn Kannada, CD rom of EuroTalk now - just words, numbers and colours, but with audio - and they stick in your mind
4. Kannada in my pocket - this very small book starts very promisingly, with all kinds of useful sentences, basic words in small smart contexts, but unfortunately it leaves you suddenly with just the phonetics of Kannada instead of the real stuff.

Then there is some smaller stuff on the internet:
1. Wikipedia phrase book: http://wikitravel.org/en/Kannada_phrasebook - again a lot of phonetics, and no more than a phrase book
2. Toerist site - audio Far better than the former one, and audio! This is just interesting for tourists, though. The audio could be clearer, there is only one voice and the woman speaks a little too quickly. She seems, however to exaggerate the speech tones a little, and that is very good for language course audio. Students have to exaggerate a little, it helps also to remember words and phrases.
3. Kannada music - wish list: transcriptions English + Kannada Nice music, but frustrating for me, because I don't understand it. To give one example: I still don't know what EE preetige means - and I'm really curious to know.
4. There used to be a web page with the Kannada alphabet read aloud very quickly, too quickly
5. LAST BUT NOT LEAST: http://www.ciil-learnkannada.net/ex.htm
This looks really good for the first step: learning the audio. I got stuck here however, because of the Hindi - only after learning the alphabet through "Kannada through English" I could do the alphabet on this government website. ALSO: the vocabulary seems useful and kept simple enough. ONLY: there is no audio.

Proposal:
What we could do as a first phase: adding audio to the alphabet files of http://www.ciil-learnkannada.net/ex.htm. Then adding audio to the Chapter Dialogue of the site etc. etc. Maybe the government department behind this kannada site would want to help too?
In a second phase we might add sketches together with grammar, building it up gradually together with very basic vocabulary.

A short whish list:

-A concise and easy-to-look-up English/Kannada grammar

-Audio files with the files on the website of Directorate Kannada Language and Culture

-Someone typing out, regrouping and reordering the little book Kannada in Your Pocket (the phonetic texts are helpful, but a lot of Kannada alphabet is missing)

-Everyday life audio sketches with Kannada transcriptions and phonetic transcriptions

-Songs with translations