Learn Tamil

Learn Tamil online with practical, real-life situations! Simple, fast and easy learning. Speak Tamil language with confidence. Start now with uTalk!


About Tamil

Tamil is an official language of Sri Lanka along with Sinhala and is also spoken in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry. It is spoken in various other Indian states as well as in Singapore. About 60 million of its speakers live in India. Tamil is a Dravidian language - others in this family include Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Because most of its vocabulary is based on Classical Tamil, modern Tamil speakers are able to understand a lot of the Classical language. Other influences on vocabulary come from Sanskrit, English and the other Dravidian languages.

uTalk Language Logo
Arrow facing left to cycle backwards through text
Play sample text audio Play sample text audio
Arrow facing right to cycle forward through text

Planet Earth

Where is it spoken?

India

Sri Lanka

Singapore

People Talking

Number of speakers

70,000,000

Family Tree

Language family

Dravidian

Southern Dravidian

Tamil-Kannada

Tamil-Kodagu

Tamil-Malayalam

Fun facts — Tamil

  • Tamil words often have a wider scope of meanings than English: kannaadi கண்ணாடி means 'glass', 'mirror' and 'spectacles'.
  • The word 'mango' comes from Tamil.
  • There are lots of false friends between Tamil and Hindi - for example, naayi means 'barber' or 'hairdresser' in Hindi but 'dog' in Tamil!

Over 30 million people have started speaking a new language with uTalk

Treasure

Over 2500 words and phrases, across 60+ topics covering everyday situations

Native Speakers

Practise speaking and compare your pronunciation with native speakers

Games

Game-based learning is fun and intuitive