How to improve my English as a Kannada native speaker?

The language of instruction at most schools and universities in Karnataka is Kannada(an exception being international and private schools). Although a few also take up English by choice. 

English is the official language in 54 countries that cover Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australasia, and which include countries as diverse as New Zealand, South Africa, Belize, India, Malta, and Singapore. This means that English is a truly universal language that makes communication across the globe easy and convenient.

Having said that, it’s interesting to know that despite more than 6,000 different languages existing all over the world, English continues to remain the Lingua Franca all over the world, with more than 350 million speaking English, as their first language and more than 430 million speaking it as their second! This makes English is the world’s most popular second language choice and the only language to have the largest number of speakers in most countries around the world. 

In addition, the British Council estimates that more than 1 billion people are learning English as a second language at any given time. English is taught at school as a second language in hundreds of countries all over the world, from France to Thailand, Israel to Malaysia, in Sweden, India, China, and in many other countries. And because English is taught all over the world, you will never feel alone during your learning process, and it will be very easy to find other English learners who can share their experiences with you during your wonderful journey through the world of ESL.

Kannada speaking students spend years in their formative years trying to gain quality education, with a particular focus on learning the ins and outs of the English language, However they fail to impress others with their learning of English. This is precisely because once they graduate from school, they are immediately released into the world with no one to correct their work. As native speakers, they may have complete command of their native tongue but despite all those years of study, can they say the same about English? Not necessarily. Even if born and raised in English, it can be particularly challenging to master at a high level. This is due to the range of erratic spelling and pronunciation alongside the constantly emerging new terms and combinations of words from other languages.

Some of the lessons learned throughout the educational years will stick with us forever, the classic “I before E except after C” rule, for example, but if we aren’t careful our correctness can really start to slip.

Catch yourself making silly mistakes- It can be much easier than you think to fall into the trap of making amateur blunders, especially with more widespread use of internet talk and abbreviations. For eg. writing “could of” instead of “could have”  or using “e.g” or “i.e”, etcetera.

Learn to speak correct English – One typical mistake speakers of most South Indian languages make is to force-fit their native colloquial framework on English. And that’s how most mistakes are generated! 

I have personally met so many senior well-accomplished people who till date, pronounce food with the sound of ‘oo’ in the foot or pronounce the letter ‘H’ as ‘hetch’! Its really sad to see someone speak as such. 

Read good quality articles/literature – Read, read, and read. Learners could use books, as they tend to have correct use of language as they have been through a strict editing process, magazines and newspapers or classics by Tolstoy, an autobiography, short story or scientific research paper..

Expand your vocabulary – Learners could use innovative interesting ways to do this rather monotonous ways such as, playing word building games on various apps, scrabble or hangman etcetera.It is the most natural way to learn is to read them over and over in different contexts.

Write a journal or a diary every day – Writing is like a muscle that needs to be worked out often in order to stay in shape. Even emails or text messages can be considered writing practise as long as you consciously try to write in concise English.

Double-check your work!  Read your writing aloud or get someone else to check it. Very often we can proofread our own material and skip over mistakes that we didn’t expect to be there. Therefore the best method of proofreading is to have someone else do it for you. eAngel is an inexpensive online platform that utilizes real professionals to proofread your text and send you back a corrected version in a short period of time. Useful for checking anything from a short email to a novel or thesis. Take note of mistakes that you make often and be aware of them when writing.

Start with learning another language. Sounds slightly off but learning different structure and grammar will make you more conscious of the structure and grammar of your own language. Exploring similarities and differences will enable you to look at English in a new light and heighten your awareness of your mother tongue. 

The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) mentions the approximate time needed to learn the Kannada language as an English speaker. To reach Speaking 3: General Professional Proficiency in Speaking (S3) and Reading 3: General Professional Proficiency in Reading (R3), an English speaker would take 1100 hours or 44 weeks, that’s about 11-12 months at a minimum. This also helps us understand how much of an effort a Kannada speaker must give to learn English. Learning English for Kannada speakers is not an easy task.

Let’s see how?

Kannada and English have no similarity why Kannada is a Dravidian language English is a Germanic language. 

With nothing in common, it’s not inappropriate to believe that a Kannada speaker will find English challenging to learn.

Both English and Kannada use different scripts while English is derived from Latin script Kannada is derived from the Kadamba script. 

While the English language uses the same 26 letters Kannada language uses 13 vowels and 34 consonants utilising completely different writing systems.

While English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, the Kannada language is largely spoken in Karnataka and neighbouring areas only. Thus it becomes imperative for all the Kannada speakers necessary to learn a language of communication such as Kannada, that will help them speak with most people in the world and aid them in the job outside Karnataka. Alternatively, if an English speaker needs to work in Karnataka Kannada language becomes a necessity to be learnt because it is widely used by most government offices, political offices and in most companies! If you choose to travel in Karnataka without the knowledge of Kannada, you would necessarily have to keep a Kannada translator by your side. This is particularly true should you choose to travel far and wide in the areas less travelled by the tourists.

Thus both languages provide immense job opportunities and open up the possibility of working in specific fields and regions. 

Finally,

Learning a new language can seem like a daunting task, especially as people have a tendency to focus on the differences between the language(s) they currently speak and the one they are interested in acquiring. 

We could all, at times, use a reminder to actively engage ourselves in our own language and enjoy delving deeper into the endless sea of knowledge that is available. By implementing these simple steps into your everyday life, you should see an obvious improvement.

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