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how long and from where can i learn formal tamil also known as centamil.?

though iam from kerala,iam very good in spoken tamil and also know the script. but i find it very difficult to understand sun tv news and other formal renderings where the diglossic centamil is used... i want help from annas and akkas of tamilnadu.

Public Comments

1. thanks for your interest in learning Thamizh. Sun News or other news channels use written formal tamil. that is not senthamizh. this you can learn by watching regularly and or get some guidance from tamil teachers. to learn senthamizh or literature tamil bit hard to learn and need good teacher to guide you. try Tamil sangam in your area. most of the border districts in Kerala you can choose Tamil as third language. You may learn from them. Also Tamil university offers language cource http://www.tamiluniversity.ac.in
2. I have the same difficulty with understanding Tamil. Spoken Tamil one can easily understand , but the "purist's" desire to perpetuate an atavistic claim about Tamil's antiquity does come in the way of efficient acquisition of Tamil as a useful instrument of vibrant communication. As born Tamil who has had the advantage of having grown up in a culture which, by its sheer adapatability, Malayalam offers distinct gains , and as a modern language is highly productive in prose and poetry. A language does not have to put on board arguments about its antiquity; what matters is how effective it is as an instrument of intellectual growth. On these counts the advance of modern Tamil is rather slow because of its inability to accept transformations of grammar and, of course, its antiquated alphabet. These defects, as they are, are not limited to Tamil alone; many other languages, especially, the north-Indian also suffer from these,but in a very limited form. Whoever tries to learn Middle English, or, Old English for the use in modern communication? Or, for that matter who would want to devote oneself, except scholiasts, pre-classical literature to express modern developments in philosophy and the sciences!. Many thanks.
3. Although I am no expert on chentamizh, I can help to the extent I can. Perhaps the best way would be to read good Tamil books (fiction or nonfiction) to build vocabulary.