Learning Telugu - A total newbie !!

[Daniel]

side note...I believe hyderabadi urdu is called rekhtii...off topic i know!

LOL do you mean Dakhni?  Rekhti is when a man writes poetry as though he were a woman.  (although very early in Urdu, say the 17th-18th century, a poet or two did refer to his language as Rekhti, but it wasn't a Hyderabadi poet.)   http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/16/6_Naim.pdf

[crazyone]

so is hyderabad mainly telugu speaking or urdu speaking? I know a lady who grew up in andra and only knew urdu!

So Daniel, what is the answer to panjabigator's question?  But Hyderabad these days must have so many migrants from the countryside who are Telugu speaking, so it must be a different situation from when it was a Nizamate.

[Daniel]

Not that i know nearly as much about AP as the other people here, but there are definately people in Hyderbad who know only urdu.  .  Many of the people i supposed could not speak telugu claimed they knew it, or knew some, but probably not that well.   I think it would depend on where they lived.  In the heart of the old city speaking urdu is hardly a problem but if you live in a muslim region like Mehdipatnam where there are also lots of telugu speakers, telugu would be more necessary.  But plenty must also be fluent in both, and most residents of the city who have been there for generations understand Urdu.  Plenty of immigrants to the city dont know much at all though. 
The answer to the question is that Hyderabad is by far more Telugu speaking than Urdu speaking, especially with regard to mother langauges. 

[panjabigator]

side note...I believe hyderabadi urdu is called rekhtii...off topic i know!

LOL do you mean Dakhni?  Rekhti is when a man writes poetry as though he were a woman.  (although very early in Urdu, say the 17th-18th century, a poet or two did refer to his language as Rekhti, but it wasn't a Hyderabadi poet.) http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/16/6_Naim.pdf

LOLLOL....ahhaha...i really did know that....slip of the mouth!!!  Id like to see a book on dakhni to see how different it is...

[wannabe]

Not that i know nearly as much about AP as the other people here, but there are definately people in Hyderbad who know only urdu.  .  Many of the people i supposed could not speak telugu claimed they knew it, or knew some, but probably not that well.   I think it would depend on where they lived.  In the heart of the old city speaking urdu is hardly a problem but if you live in a muslim region like Mehdipatnam where there are also lots of telugu speakers, telugu would be more necessary.  But plenty must also be fluent in both, and most residents of the city who have been there for generations understand Urdu.  Plenty of immigrants to the city dont know much at all though. 
The answer to the question is that Hyderabad is by far more Telugu speaking than Urdu speaking, especially with regard to mother langauges. 

When Hyderabad was first made the capital of Andhra Pradesh, practically no one spoke Telugu there, Urdu being the dominant language.  Remember that under the Nizam, it was actually a crime to speak/write in Telugu.  The Telugu people who moved to Hyderabad were forced to learn Urdu to survive, and Telugu visitors who spoke only Telugu couldn't get served in shops, hire a rickshaw, etc.  For decades there were complaints by Telugu people from other parts of the state about how shameful it was that the state's language shouldn't be spoken in the state capital.  Over the past 50 years, that has been changing, to where both Urdu and Telugu are spoken there about equally, meaning that most people know both, but there are certainly plenty of people who speak only one or the other, and who can manage all right.

Nowadays the real problem about speaking Telugu is that people will answer you back in English. 

[ek_ladki]

i have that about 40-50% of the people in Hyd speak Telugu... from word of mouth, admittedly. its interesting though... i take it there are more Muslims in Hyd than Hindus?

funnily enough, all of the movies (at least, i think all) are made in Telugu... do the minority have more power or something?

lol wannabe... that is so true... didntya know... its 'cool' to speak English lol!! have u ever read the Deccan Chronicle? the bits at the top (word of the day or something like that?) are hilarious!

[crazyone]

i have that about 40-50% of the people in Hyd speak Telugu... from word of mouth, admittedly. its interesting though... i take it there are more Muslims in Hyd than Hindus?

funnily enough, all of the movies (at least, i think all) are made in Telugu... do the minority have more power or something?

lol wannabe... that is so true... didntya know... its 'cool' to speak English lol!! have u ever read the Deccan Chronicle? the bits at the top (word of the day or something like that?) are hilarious!

Uhh, pyaari, Telugu is by far the vast majority language of the state of Andhra Pradesh (and that's a LOT of people), so it's more like the vast majority (and the economic benefits to the moviemakers) are driving the movies made in Hyderabad, not the other way around.  The minority would have more power if the movies were made in Hyderabadi Urdu.  The people who understand that can probably understand Hindi movies while the people in Andhra villages would probably not.

[prican411]

Can someone translate this for me....pretty please 

[Raspberry_Swirl]

My family is Telugu also, but I can only understand the language on a conversational level (and at a very elementary level).  Does anyone know any good resources for learning Telugu?

[wannabe]

Can someone translate this for me....pretty please 

Here's wishing that today is the day that you accomplish what you set out to do

And that all day there will be a smile on your face

If I have hurt you through my words or deeds, please forgive me, my friend!  Hoping the two of us will remain good friends,

Everyone has friends, it's true

But to  me you are greater than anything, closer than anyone

[wannabe]

My family is Telugu also, but I can only understand the language on a conversational level (and at a very elementary level).  Does anyone know any good resources for learning Telugu?

They have a long established Telugu program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for both conversational Telugu and reading and writing (as well as more advanced courses in Telugu literature).

A similar program is being set up at the University of California, Berkeley.

There are the ones that immediately come to mind.  If you want online resources, I'll try to look them up for you.  Also, you can see if any Telugu classes are offered through your local Telugu community (usually informal ones through the cultural associations).

[theboldandthebolly]

I was about to start a new thread when I found this. I have recently started watching telugu movies, and I love the language. So fluid.  So since the last post for this was 2006, have they developed any programs like audio cd's that will teach you the proper sounds, alphabet, etc, that are worth the expense and that will help? 

[omlick]

I was about to start a new thread when I found this. I have recently started watching telugu movies, and I love the language. So fluid.  So since the last post for this was 2006, have they developed any programs like audio cd's that will teach you the proper sounds, alphabet, etc, that are worth the expense and that will help? 

I am not aware of anything that is out there, but there must be some textbooks at the university level for acheiving some knowledge of the langauge.  Keep in mind that the Dravidian languages are quite different than Hindii and other I ndo- European languagues, they are agglutative and that makes them very difficult to learn to those who are not born into them.  Think Hungarian, Turkish, Finnish, Georgian among others like that.

Be it said, I would look for books on Amazon.com first.  I don't think Rosetta Stone has anything for Dravidian languages yet.

[theboldandthebolly]

I am not aware of anything that is out there, but there must be some textbooks at the university level for acheiving some knowledge of the langauge.  Keep in mind that the Dravidian languages are quite different than Hindii and other I ndo- European languagues, they are agglutative and that makes them very difficult to learn to those who are not born into them.  Think Hungarian, Turkish, Finnish, Georgian among others like that.

Be it said, I would look for books on Amazon.com first.  I don't think Rosetta Stone has anything for Dravidian languages yet.

Thanks. I've been browsing around, and saw some things, was hoping maybe someone had used them. Not to be too dumb here, but what the heck is agglutative in purely laymen's terms. I tried looking it up, but was so confused by the explanation, I just gave up.

[MinaiMinai]

This is a great thread- glad you revived it theboldandthebolly!  I've seen the word "Telengana" around on the 'net but had no idea what it meant.  I assumed it meant "classical Telugu," lol.  Also very interesting that Urdu has such a presence in Hyderabad.

I was about to start a new thread when I found this. I have recently started watching telugu movies, and I love the language. So fluid.  So since the last post for this was 2006, have they developed any programs like audio cd's that will teach you the proper sounds, alphabet, etc, that are worth the expense and that will help? 

I really love the sound of Telugu too.  From what I've heard, there aren't many jarring sounds and it's all "fluid" like you said.  Unlike Tamil imo, of which I have a personal pet peeve (the "zh" sound).  I have a good friend that speaks Telugu and I love to just listen to him talk in it.  I looked back at some old internet bookmarks I'd made when I was looking for resources to learn Telugu, and this link has a few resources at the bottom: http://www.teluguwebsite.com/Telugu_Alphabets.html  I think I have seen the "Talk Now" version on ebay in the past.  I have not personally used any of these, though.  Amazon.com has a few ratings and reviews on the Telugu language materials listed  (I love the "Baby Hindustani" series ), and from what I remember most of the reviews were not too great.

I would be interested in hearing an explanation for "agglutative" as well.  It sounds kinda scary.

[omlick]

I would be interested in hearing an explanation for "agglutative" as well.  It sounds kinda scary.

It is scary!  It means that words are pasted  together phoneme by phoneme , and they can get longer and longer, where you have one word = a  whole sentence in meaning.  It is a whole different way of looking at a language than people from a non-aggluative language is used to.

Did you ever wonder why some movies titles in Tamil and Telugu have words that are so long in them?  Now you know.   

[sparkletwist]

The word is "agglutinative," actually.

Interestingly enough, the spectrum between highly isolating languages (where each word is essentially separate) and highly agglutinating ones (where words are big long compounds) is actually a circle-- because when you have a whole bunch of little one-morpheme words all next to each other, it doesn't take much imagination to treat that like a big long word instead. 

[kmemphis]

This seems as good as place as any. I'm not interested in learning Telugu, I'm trying to hold on to my college French and thinking of adding Arabic to the mix, for god's sake! I don't need more than the occaisonal pyar or pagal.

But I have a lot of Tollywood songs in my collection, and I'm never sure about how to pronounce them. (Though I do realize that "th" is often just a "t" sound, at least when they're singing. That's as good as good a guide as any, right?


Also.

How do you pronounce "telugu"? I've been mentally saying it as "tell-you-goo" and I'd love to know how off I am. (this will be important very soon, as I want to talk about Bollywood and mention some of India's other film industry's, like and pronounce it right so the only Indian student in class doesn't kill me.)

 (I'm only 60% sure I know how to pronounce tamil, and that's because I saw an AR Rahman interview on youtube where he talked about working with MIA and how they're both tamil. Both vowels are short - tam (like tam o shanter? and ill, only shorter.)

I do know how to say Hindi though!

[Istina]

ow do you pronounce "telugu"? I've been mentally saying it as "tell-you-goo" and I'd love to know how off I am. (this will be important very soon, as I want to talk about Bollywood and mention some of India's other film industry's, like and pronounce it right so the only Indian student in class doesn't kill me.)

The Telugu friends I grew up with always pronounced it like this: "tell-uh-goo."

This is semi-OT, but is it wrong to pronounce "Tamil" as "tahhhh-mill"? It seems like those who haven't grown up speaking Tamil pronounce it "tahhh-mill" and the ones that have grown up speaking Tamil pronounce it like "tam-mill".

[kmemphis]

The Telugu friends I grew up with always pronounced it like this: "tell-uh-goo."

Thank you!

Or, thank your friends, or whatever, thanks! You know how little things, like how to pronounce the name of the language in your own, can get to you.

And that actually is how I said the few times I said it, very hesitatingly, like, "this sounds different than the other stuff, ok, it's from Tollywood, it's *deep breath* in tell-uh-goo." ::crickets:: All those nerves over mispronouncing the word, wasted on people who'd never even heard or read about it! Or even cared.

I've found the internet to be a good place to go for pronunciation issues, despite the whole written medium thing. I honestly wasn't sure how to pronounce Vonnegut, so I went to his IMDb page and asked. They probably thought I was a loon and an idiot, but someone told me.

[bitterlemons]

This is semi-OT, but is it wrong to pronounce "Tamil" as "tahhhh-mill"? It seems like those who haven't grown up speaking Tamil pronounce it "tahhh-mill" and the ones that have grown up speaking Tamil pronounce it like "tam-mill".

Istina,

well, if you subscribe to the theory that the name of the language is a word with a correct pronounciation, then yes, saying "Tahhh-mill" is wrong....actually, so are tam-mill or tum-mill - it should be tum-mizh, where the "zh" is pronounced like an American "r" - roll it. That last sound is difficult for many Indians to produce, so tum-mil is the most common pronounciation you'll hear.

Bitterlemons

[theboldandthebolly]

It is scary!  It means that words are pasted  together phoneme by phoneme , and they can get longer and longer, where you have one word = a  whole sentence in meaning.  It is a whole different way of looking at a language than people from a non-aggluative language is used to.

Did you ever wonder why some movies titles in Tamil and Telugu have words that are so long in them?  Now you know.   

Okay so if I understand because some of the explanations are just too confusing (and I'm a little slow  )... the language consists of many looooong words that have great meaning. You could say one word that in english you would need many words to form the sentence?

[sparkletwist]

You could say one word that in english you would need many words to form the sentence?

Yes, that's right, because that one word more or less is the sentence.

The very long words are, of course, easily deconstructed into their component parts (or speakers would have to learn far too many words), so in this regard it's a bit different from English were many of our compounds do not leave it completely clear where their structural components came from.

Essentially, it's as though instead of saying "I'm can't figure out how to make sentences in Telugu," you said something like "I notcanfigureout Telugusentencemakemethod." (I don't know if these compounds are actually how they work in Telugu, but it's the basic idea behind agglutinating languages)

[D.t.]

Now, I am not learning Telugu. But as the geek I am, I thought I would see what kind of resources there are on the Internet for it, and found some sites which might be a good start for the beginners.

http://www.cpbrownacademy.org/pdfs/Telugu%20Module%202%20Layout.pdf

http://www.sreespace.com/teluguclasses/

http://www.sirigina.com/learn/index.asp?C=3

http://telugu4kids.com/TeluguMaatalu.aspx

[theboldandthebolly]

Yes, that's right, because that one word more or less is the sentence.

The very long words are, of course, easily deconstructed into their component parts (or speakers would have to learn far too many words), so in this regard it's a bit different from English were many of our compounds do not leave it completely clear where their structural components came from.

Essentially, it's as though instead of saying "I'm can't figure out how to make sentences in Telugu," you said something like "I notcanfigureout Telugusentencemakemethod." (I don't know if these compounds are actually how they work in Telugu, but it's the basic idea behind agglutinating languages)

Yeah!!!! Thank you!!! I was having a hard time wrapping my head around it, but that makes sense. Wow, it sounds like it could be a hard language to learn. Perhaps even a whole different thinking process involved than in learning hindi.