Kannada Learning Resources At One Place

Being myself from north India, it was difficult for me to get started in learning Kannada. Learning a new language is certainly not easy, all the more when there is not much practical need of it.

Bangalore, being a cosmopolitan city, is comfortable most of the times with English and sometimes with Hindi as well. At other times you can resort to sign language safely (as I used to do while communicating with my maid). But still I wanted to learn the language - may be as a token of respect to all those Kannadigas who have been a part of my Bangalore life. To be able to talk friendly and warmly with my maid or with those faceless auto-walas or with the lady sitting next to me in bus or with my building's watchman's kids, is what I wanted in general.

So I started to learn the language - first through a private tutor, and then on my own through various resources available online and offline. I am putting here links of those resources which helped me a lot in this journey of "learning Kannada".

Kannada Learning Websites

• Learn Spoken Kannada - Good for beginners. Every word has a speaker button to help us know how the word is pronounced.

• Kannada lessons - Good for a beginner. All the lessons contain audio.

• Kannada Podcasts - A large number of Podcasts (audios) which one can download too in mp3 format. The host has a clear voice which is easy to follow.

• Spoken Kannada - Preliminary Lessons in Spoken Kannada

• Kannada Phrasebook A long list of useful phrases, sentences and vocabulary.

• Fun with Kannada Grammar This site is good for understanding the subtle points of Grammar

• Explore and learn Kannada in an easier way - This site provides live examples with photos which make it easy to relate a word in reality.

• Learn one kannada word a day - This site posts a Kannada word everyday along with its meaning and 2-3 popular usage.

Kannada Writing / Reading - Learning script

Even though most people avoid learning the script, it does not take much time and is very helpful later on. I learnt the script in 5 days and kept reinforcing the skill of reading when passing by signboards, shops and restaurant names, etc. The skill of writing came in handy when learning new words with correct pronunciation. If I wrote a new word in English/Hindi for memorizing, I would always pronounce it wrongly later. So I used to write Kannada words in Kannada itself. This initially took some effort but was fun later on.

• Learn to write Kannada vowels

• Learn to write Kannada consonants

• Learn how consonants join vowel

• Picture dictionary of Kannada Vowels

• Picture dictionary of Kannada Consonants

Learn Kannada Through Books

• Conversational Kannada, A microwave approach (With CD) by N D Krishnamurthy - Best among all the books I came across. It teaches the language very systematically.

• Kannada Through English by M.G. Nagaraja Rao

• Kannada Made Easy

• Kannada-Kannada-English Dictionary by Prof. G. Venkatasubbaiah

Facebook groups and pages

• Learn Spoken Kannada

• Kannada Song Translation

• Fun with Learning Kannada

• Kannada Learning School

• Learn kannada (kannada kali)

You tube play-lists in Kannada

• Nursery Rhymes in Kannada with Written Lyrics

• Classic Nursery Rhymes in Kannada

• Nursery Rhymes in Kannada with Lyrics

• Talking Books in Kannada with Kannada Subtitles

• Fairy Tales in Kannada

• Learn about Human Body Parts in Kannada

• Learn About Animals in Kannada

• Akbar and Birbal Tales in Kannada

• Tenali Raman Tales in Kannada

• Panchatantra Tales in Kannada

• Kannada Panchatantra Cartoon

• The Whispering Palms: A Kannada Children' story with subtitles

I hope with all these resources at hand your Kannada Learning journey begins happy and ends happy. If you know of any other great resource, please post in comment so that we keep updating this page.

Kannada Books Available Online

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