It was interesting this week working with Aarti, because as we were pronouncing words, I kept mispronouncing the "t" - I was making it hard like "top" whereas it should sometimes be soft like "the." After researching the Kannada alphabet, it struck me that Kannada has several versions of "b" and "t" and "l" which English does not have:
There is a huge difference between "lu" where you move your tongue against your teeth, and "lu" when you mov eit against the roof of your mouth. There is also one word that is quite important (very) - "bhal" which should NOT be pronounced "ball" but rather like you are saying "pa" with a "bha" - "bh-al." These minor differences are important, as one could be saying entirely different words!
One final interesting moment in learning was when I learned the phrase for "I have 2 daughters." Indians wouldnt say "have" - they use the verb "to be." So it ends up being - "For me, two daughters are." I thought in light of the communal culture, it was so interesting that in speech, one would include one's daughters with oneself. Americans would never say - "in regards to me, my daughters are...." - it would be much more individual in terms of seeing the world. This statement says something about the importance of family in Karnataka.
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