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Lets Learn Telugu! Grammar

Lesson #1
Its hard to figure out where to start with the grammar, so
unfortunately blog-readers, youre going to have to go with
my whims. Probably reviewing whatever Im going over in
class today which wont make much sense for you. Sorry. I
have officially upgraded my Mac and can write and read in
Telugu with it now. ! (If you cant read that, well, you
need an upgrade too!)
Todays lesson was simple: Postpositions With and
For
What is a Postposition? One of the hardest things in learning
a new language is realizing all the English grammar you
didnt know existed, like a postposition. A postposition is
basically a word that puts a noun in a certain place, such as
in or on or to.
For
,, or (pronounced: ku, kohsum, kohraku)

This is used to explain to whom/what a noun is for. I.e.:

This tea is for my father. .
The ku sound turns into a (ke) sound (there at the end of
the sentence) basically randomly. Telugu is a bit flexible in
deciding to change things based on how they sound. A lot of
things have an u such as ku and so having the ku
repeated at the end to represent for is not a problem: it
sounds fine! But sometimes it just sounds weird, so you
change it to (ke). The best part of this postposition: no
verb! The sentence therefore translate directly as This tea my
father for. The verb (undi) is implied.
The hardest part about ? It also means to (as in, I go to a
party, or I go to the house) depending on the context!
With
(pronounced: toe)
Pretty self explanatory in English. Anytime you would say
with in English, add the toe word.
I.e.: I eat with my family. .
This is pretty straight forward in Telugu too. The hardest part
is really remembering how to correctly conjugate the verbs.
That is another blog post all together. (Tomorrow probably.)
Anyway, theres the first lesson a pretty good one to start
out on if youre actually interested in learning and a relatively
easy one for me to review and write on.
Word of the day:

pronounced: maansamn
meaning: meat.

Our lesson is on food these next two weeks or so, so probably

a lot of food words. Generally ones Ive had trouble
remembering.
/******/

Grammar Lesson #2: Present

Tense Verbs Positive
I told you it was going to get confusing, and oh my goodness
it will. Present tense verbs you think would be simple. But
they never are. And Telugu is no different. I wish it were like
Chinese: no conjugations! Alashere we go.
Telugu verbs are like romance language verbs; that is, there
are formal and informal ways of conjugating them. In
English, we dont have this. We dont have the formal you.
Telugu has the following pronouns:
English

Telugu

Pronunciatio Verb

Pronoun

Me

Pronoun

Neh-nu

Ending

You (formal)

Me-ru

You

Nee-vu

Eye-ya-na

Va-do

Ah-meh

(informal)
He (formal)

He (informal)
She (formal)

She
(informal)

Ah-meh

We

Meh-moo

They

Va-lu

Verb conjugations are all about rules. Once you know the
rules, then you can conjugate anything. But figuring out
those rules and all the ones that dont apply is the
confusing bit.
Now, there is one easy rule to conjugating verbs: the ending.
The end of ANY verb will be the last syllable of the pronoun.
That is, if you are saying I eat then you will use and the
verb will end in . Easy, right! will end
in . Exception: 3rd person pronouns. He and She formal,
and They will end the same thing: . She informal will end
in or . He informal will end in .
BUT, now we get into the complicated rules. There are a
couple rules though that makes these otherwise easy things
complicated, of course. Hopefully I figure out a way to
properly explain it.
Rule #1: KNOW THE FULL VERB ITSELF!
The full to do to work to see and not some already
modified form or whatever. Maybe its my teacher or the
stuff Ive read/had, but this is surprisingly complicated to

find. It seems that most verbs end in , and the gets

dropped (replaced with the verb endings listed above).
Rule #2: Add the (aa) sound before the verb
ending.
Because most of the verbs end in , this means that its going
to change to .
Rule #3: Anything with an (ew) sound in the 2nd
out of 3rd syllable turns into an (e) sound, such as
,,or ,,or .
Exception #1: Second person informal. This does
not occur. The sound to . Instead, it drops the extra
sound all together and remains the normal a sound
(the check mark that is about a lot of telugu syllables).
Rule #4: Anything with , in the last syllable
(generally 3 out of 3 syallbles) turns into
Exception #1: Some change to , not : No, Im
not sure why. No, Im not sure totally which ones. Right
now, I believe that includes to give, to walk,
and to come (to come is a whole nother beast
actually)
Exception #2: Feminine informal. (Please note: I
hate feminine informal. It is the worst verb
conjugation. Also, it is used for things. So dont get me

started on the feminist objectives in me using the polite

form only). The (long aa) sound turns into the (short
e) sound instead. So, becomes . This occurs for
any change in the 3rd syllable for the feminine informal.
Rule #5: Anything with in the 2nd out of 2 letters
changes to
Rule #6: Feminine informal (again). The verb
conjugation will be . But like the in other verbs,
it gets dropped a lot of the time, so basically its just .
Verb Exceptions #1: changes to ( ), not .
Imperatives:
Imperative Rule #1: Start with the normal verb
form. The last letter changes to an a sound. I.E.
->
Imperative Rule #2: If the last letter is an (ew)
sound, then the letter before it also turns into an a
sound. I.E.: ->
Imperative Rule #3: Add (andi) to the end of
everything. Ta da! Imperative form!

The problem, as you can probably tell, is keeping all of these

rules straight. So, when you go to conjugate a verb youre like

Wait, where is the sound? How does it changeWhat does

the verb end in Its justits difficult right now. hahaha.
/****/

Grammar #3: Present Tense

Verb Negative
So far that I can tell, negative present tense (I do not eat) is
not necessarily difficult, but listening to it is going to be
difficult. Lets take a look at the rules first.
Rule #1: Take the verb form, change everything to an
a sound. (Basically, take out all the sounds)
Rule #2: Apply the verb endings like you would
present tense.
The hard part of negative, thus far at least, is differentiating
the sounds. The difference between a positive and negative
for some verbs is literally and slightly longer aa sound
instead of an a sound. Im not sure, when listening to
Telugu, how Im going to be able to do that.
For example:
I eat: (nehnu teenaanu)
I do not eat: (nehnu teenanu)

BUT, the easy thing is: all those rules about changing things
to or whatever, dont matter. The verb form just changes
to the a sound (basically, its normal or pure sound).
Exceptions #1 and #2: and
means to come and means to go. However, when
in the positive form, these verbs change into different
forms. becomes , becomes . They
conjugate according to the rules of the other verbs. EXCEPT
the command and imperative: then you continue to
use /. In the negative, however, they remain as
and and conjugate from that.
Example:
I come: (nehnu vacchanu)
I do not come: (nehnu raanu)
Negative Imperatives
Basically the same as positive, with one change.
Imperative Rule #1: Start with the normal verb
form. The last letter changes to an a sound. I.E.
->
Imperative Rule #2: If the last letter is an (ew)
sound, then the letter before it also turns into an a
sound.

Imperative Rule #3: Add (kandi) to the end of

everything. Ta da! Negative imperative form!
/***/

Telugu Grammar #4
Should/Need/Want/Can
It might be a little bit of a longer post, but these four verbs
can kind of all be lumped together. They do similar things to
each other that are different (and easier) than other verbs.
Luckily they are easier because they are super useful!
These verbs are all similar because the verbs themselves do
no conjugate. You take the verb form and generally add
things to it. All those special rules I explained yesterday
(Grammar Lessons #2 and #3) dont apply. Its amazing.
Please note: All of these say add the plus other things to
the verb form. Whenever is added to the verb form, it
means change the previous syllable and make it an sound
(take away its , etc. sounds) not actually adding the itself.
Should
Should has to be the easiest of the four verbs Ill be
describing.
Rule #1: Take the verb form + (a le)
Rule #2: 2nd letter (ew) sound changes to an
(a) sound

- i.e. to read: I should read

Rule #3: IF a verb ends in a long vowel sound
( ,,, ,) then you add instead.
- i.e. to sit: I should sit
Should not
The only rule!: verb form +
Can/Cannot
Luckily, can is pretty straightforward.
Positive: (Verb form + ) + x*
Negative: (Verb form + ) + x*
Wait! What does x* mean?? X* is the verb conjugation
ending. No, you dont conjugate the whole verb, you are just
taking the , , , that the verbs end in and putting it
there. It makes sure that the can matches the gender of the
pronoun.
- I.e.
. I can speak Telugu.

. I cannot speak Telugu.
Need/Want
Why lump these two together? Why, because theyre the
same!
The important thing to remember with need and want is that
you must always use / (ku/ke) after the pronoun.

Remember, the verbs dont conjugate! Im going to lump

these into corresponding sentences with examples.
1. I want: (kaavaale). You do not use a verb with this.
This is only used to say you want something. So, Pronoun +
/ + Noun + . I want (noun).
- I.e. (naanu ee poostakamu
kaavaale) I want this book.
2. I need: See above. Exact same.
3. I do not want: Use the same sentence structure as
above: no verb. Instead of , use
. Pronoun + / +
Noun +
.

- I.e.
(naaku ee poostakamu vaddu) I
do not want this book.
4. I do not need: Same structure, but use
(akkaralaydu). Pronoun + / Noun + .
- I.e. (naaku ee poostakamu
akkaralaydu) I do not need this book.
5. I want to (verb): In order to say you do not want to do a
certain verb (I want to go, I want to eat, I want to walk, etc.)
you must add + (aalanee undi) to the verb form.
Note: No matter what the pronoun is, it will always be
+. You can have nouns or not. The structure will be:
Pronoun + / + Noun + (verb+) .

- I.e. (naaku roteh teegaalaneunde) I

want to eat bread.
6. I need to (verb): See above.
7. I dont want to (verb): Basically youre going to start
combining rules. Take rule number 3 and add it to rule
number 5. Instead of having the sentence end in , it will
end in . (
and mean the same thing but are not

interchangeable.) So you add + to the verb form. The

structure will be: Pronoun + / + Noun + (verb+) .
- I.e. (naaku roteh teegaalanelaydu) I
do not want to eat bread.
8. I dont need to (verb): This sentence will also end in
(since you dont X it). You apply + to the verb
form. The structure will be: Pronoun + / + Noun +
(verb+) .
- I.e. I.e. (naaku roteh
teegaanakkaralaydu) I do not need to eat bread. [I will
never say this sentence. You always need bread!]
/****/

Telugu Grammar #5 Like and

Dont Like and the case of
the Dative
Remember what I said about learning things about English
grammar that you didnt even know until you learn a
language: this is one of those times.
In Telugu, the dative case is used quite frequently for many
different things. According to Wikipedia,
The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to
indicate the noun to which something is given, as in
George gave Jamie a drink. In general, the dative marks
the indirect object of a verb, although in some instances the
dative is used for the direct object of a verb pertaining
directly to an act of giving something.
In Telugu, this is represented by the syllable or . Its used
with some verbs (need/want), and also with time, directions,
and age. It is also used with to like or not like, explained
below.
To like/not like is incredibly simple. Basically, you just add

or
to the end of the sentence. Thus, your sentence
would look like:
Pronoun + / + noun +
/
.

I like ice cream.

.

I dont like ice cream.

.
Simple!
/**********************************************/

My Field Trip

, , ,

.

.
. FSI ,

. ,
, .

, .
,
, ,

. . .

,
. .
, .
.
.



.

, .
.

. .
, , , ,
.
.

.
.

 , .
. .

. ,
.

,

.

Phew! That took awhile to write and then long to type as well!
Basically, its just a story about my first field trip. We went to
this big Asian market called Lotte. There were all these Indian
and Asian fruits, vegetables, and snacks. I bought some small
white eggplants and other snacks and what-not. Then we
went to this Indian restaurant. The food was crazy spicy! I
guess Im going to have to get used to that, arent I? But it was
still good food. The teachers I was with (mine and another
teacher) tried to make me talk to people who spoke Telugu
but I was so frightened. Its likewhen a person tries to speak
to me and Im not ready for the interaction, my whole brain
flies away. My true introvert and shy personality comes out in
that completely unprepared for situation!
Now, this is just in present tense not past, since I havent
learned past tense yet. Seems kind of crazy to think I havent
learned past tense yet. Ive been studying Telugu for just over
two months now. It feels like forever ago, but I still feel like I
hardly know anything. Anyway, the next thing I write (about
my weekend) will be in progressive tense. Im working on
writing things in present, then again in progressive in order to
get used to all the tenses.
Anyway, back to some studying!
/******************/

 My weekend
, .

. mosaic district

. .
.

12 .

. . Jake .

. Jake ,
.

. .

It seems so much longer in my book and when I say it and

when I type it. But it looks so small and insignificant here.
hahaah.
Anyway, this is a story of my weekend in the progressive
tense, which I just learned end of last week. Im trying to
write things in present tense and then in progressive to get
more used to them both. Ill try and write the rules of
progressive here soon theyre quite easy.
So the story goes something like this: Saturday we got up a
little late. Every Saturday we make pancakes. Then we went to
the Mosaic District (its a really cute, kinda hipstery
shopping area not too far from where I live). We shopped, we
ate soup and pasta for lunch, then we went to see 12 years a
slave. The movie was important and sad. It was a

phenomenal movie and I recommend everyone see it. Funny

how British actors are portraying Americans. Back to the
story. We went home and found out Jake had a fever. I
cleaned and made soup, and he took medicine. Then we went
to bed. Sunday was a lazy day because Jake is sick. I went to
some friends house for lunch to celebrate another one of our
friends being in town. I then went home and we watched
football and I read.
Along with these small write-ups, I need to read the news and
translate it in my head to Telugu and explain it in Telugu for
the next morning. Along with that, Im creating Quizlet
flashcards hopefully two a day, but not today. Maybe one
today. Gotta stay on target for tomorrow!
/***********************/