Malayalam Ishtammalla

So I’ve been having these Malayalam lessons every evening, right before dinner, for the past couple months. If I’m being completely honest (and why do I write these blogs if not for that?), I have to say that these usually ruin what would have been a perfectly wonderful day.

It’s not that I don’t like my teacher; in fact, I have grown to love this sweet, old woman who wants to be my “amma” (mother) while I am in India. And, it’s ironic, but I usually look forward to the 7:00 hour when I will get to be with her. It’s at 8:00, after our lesson is complete, that I feel like I want to scream and cry and maybe even run away so Sheela-Teacher can never find me for another lesson.

Ok, so it’s not that bad, but it’s still bad. Malayalam has got to be the most difficult language in existence to learn. The alphabet has about a billion symbols, and nearly all of the words are miles long. For example, the word for sit is “irrikkunnu.” And that’s only one example of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them (not that I know that many Malayalam words, mind). On top of all of this, I have very little motivation. Most everyone here speaks English, and even those who don’t speak English understand my English much better than my Malayalam. And so it goes…

Anyway, all that’s left to say is that Malayalam is giving me an awful headache, and after 7:00 at night, I’m usually in a mood that would probably even surprise my “amma” – that’s my real one I’m talking about.

(By the way, “ishtammalla” means dislike.)