A very close friend of mine requested me to help her out with a challenge. What is it I asked? And how can I help? She smiled and said I want to use English the way I use Malayalam.
Now that surely is a challenge! A good one too!
As a person who takes extreme care in presenting her thoughts and one who is blessed with the choicest selection of words, Anjali seemed very humble placing a request to someone like me who actually admired her language skills in Malayalam. Well, to be very honest, I envy the way she stresses the syllables as beautifully as they are printed in the lexicon! I tell her that most often... and now its proclaimed here as well.
As any communication expert would implore, she yelled at me recently "Its my mind that speaks, not I and my mind knows to think only in Malayalam. I want to think in English. How do I do that?"
Oops... any answers? I pitched her into my English Club learning sites and she has picked up quite a lot already... But she prefers to relate her learning experiences to her mother tongue rather than Chinese, Russian and other languages... Ive promised to help from my experience in translating from Malayalam to English and pacified her saying "Sure your mind can think in English. Its not translation of tara para into floor and flower pot that matters... Its the association of words, their position and the time or tense that matters ... as in any language. And its no rocket science either that can't be learnt."
For my Ajju, as I fondly call Anjali, I would like to share a few simple language learning tips to help her "think English" while she speaks English just as she "thinks Malayalam", when she speaks Malayalam. I know Im jumping into a hot pan of oil with absolute fire burning underneath... In any case, with all my love for her, I would like to begin with the world's most beloved statement.... I love you...
In Malayalam we say it as Njaan ninne snehikkunnu... A technical look at the sentence shows that the subject, object and verb are specifically positioned in the respective languages....
In English, its
- subject (I),
- followed by the verb (love)
- and finally the object (you)
where as in Malayalam it begins with
- subject (Njaan, that's I),
- followed by the object (ninne, that's you) and
- finally the verb (snehikkunnu, that's love)...
That's the secret. The myth. The Da Vinci Code! Catch that? SVO in English and SOV in Malayalam... Build your sentences on this. This is the first step my friend and the easiest way to learn... Just fall in love.. With your language, any language and wait patiently for more learning lessons....
