Resources for learning business Kannada Language
Kannada is a Dravidian language that is spoken as a first language by 38 million people and as a second language by another 9 million people in southern India, in the state of Karnataka and neighboring states such as Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra, in South India. One of the 22 official languages and 14 regional languages of India, Kannada has literature that dates from the ninth century! It also shares a lot of words in similarities and grammatical structure(colloquial speech) with other Dravidian languages like Telugu and Tamil. The Kannada language is written using the Kannada script, which evolved from the 5th-century Kadamba script. The earliest existing example of written Kannada, the Halmidi Inscription, dates back around 2,500 years.
Kannada language diglossic in nature: which means it is written and spoken in different manners. While the written Kannada is generally the same all over the spoken Kannada differs, region and community wise. Thus creating almost 20 variants of the language called dialects. Depending on where exactly you are in Karnataka, you might overhear a different variant of this language. There are significant southern, northern, and coastal differences, not to mention social and class-based ones. Kannada has accepted several loan words from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and English.
How Difficult Is Kannada?
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) has created a list to show the approximate time you need to learn a specific language as an English speaker and is considered as a ballpark for many, to figure out how difficult a language really is for English speakers. While the FSI’s website doesn’t explicitly mention Kannada, many people consider it to be in line with their Category IV languages, meaning it would sit alongside Pashto, Urdu, and Nepali. For category IV languages
FSI recommends intensively studying 25 hours a week, whereby you will reach professional working proficiency after 44 weeks, 1100 hours or roughly 10 months.
While, “professional working proficiency” in itself is a pretty vague description its been compared to both the B2 and C1 CEFR levels. Ten months to get to B2/C1 is very encouraging but most of us won’t be able to study for 25 hours a week (plus homework!). So, realistically speaking, how difficult is Kannada and how long will it take you to learn it?
Well, it truly depends on an individual, their commitment, how much time they can spare in each day and the week besides several other factors.
Two important factors amongst so many that will aid a speedy learning of Kannada are:
If you are surrounded by Kannada speakers so you get to use Kannada every day, and
If you already know one of the Dravidian languages that have a lot in common with Kannada
On the other hand, speakers of non Dravidian languages or European languages or people who don’t have any connect with Kannada outside the classroom we need to step up their learning with a lot more practise, notes, extra exercises, drills, speaking and practice opportunities.