Words which tend to go together well and, when you use them, you sound more fluent.

IELTS Vocab

IELTS Collocations

Class 69 — the road: autos, buses, directions and prices. This class is pure survival, and you should treat it differently from the others.

Everything else in this course you can learn slowly over months, deepening as you go. This one you should memorise like a phone number — because you will need it on your first day, in a moving vehicle, under time pressure, possibly in the rain, while someone waits for your answer. So there are fewer ideas here and more fixed phrases, repeated more than usual. That repetition is deliberate. Do not skip it.

HOW YOU TRAVEL. ഓട്ടോ (auto) — the auto rickshaw, three wheels, yellow and black, everywhere, and your main short-distance transport. ബസ് (bus) — Kerala’s private buses are fast, loud, brightly painted, and run on a network that reaches almost everywhere. ടാക്സി · ട്രെയിൻ · ബോട്ട് — and in the backwater districts the boat is not tourism, it is public transport.

THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT WORD: എത്ര (ethra) — how much, how many. You will use it constantly.
എത്രയാണ്? (ethrayaanu?) how much is it?
And it combines with everything: എത്ര ദൂരം? how far · എത്ര സമയം? how long · എത്ര രൂപ? how many rupees.

THE AUTO SEQUENCE, in the order it will actually happen:
1. Will you go? Say the place name and add പോകാമോ? (pokaamo?) or വരുമോ? (varumo?). So: ഫോർട്ട് കൊച്ചി പോകാമോ?
2. The price — and this is where you must be able to speak. എത്രയാണ്? How much? മീറ്റർ ഇടാമോ? (meter idaamo?) Will you put the meter on?
3. Then the journey itself, and getting out where you meant to.

Memorise this one. You will use it before you use anything else in the course.

Quizzes below. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.

Malayalam Survival Kit | Food, Travel & Getting Around Kerala

Autos, Buses and Prices in Malayalam — The Survival Class to Memorise Like a Phone Number

Class 42 — health and emergency, in Malayalam script. This is the vocabulary drill: four blocks, every word written properly in script so that what you hear is the real sound. Repeat every item aloud — and if you cannot speak, mouth it with your tongue moving.

പനി (pani) — fever. Start here, because this is the word you will hear more than any other health word in Kerala. In this climate fever is the default illness, and പനി covers a wide band of feverish unwellness rather than a precise temperature reading.

ജലദോഷം (jaladosham) — a common cold, and this one is worth a moment. Break it apart: ജലം is water, ദോഷം is a fault, a defect, a harmful influence. Water-trouble. Malayalam is telling you the old theory of the illness inside the word — that a cold comes from cold and wet.

And English does exactly the same thing without noticing. We say catch a cold, as though the temperature itself were the agent. French speakers attraper un rhume. Hindi calls it सर्दी, which simply means coldness. Chinese names it 感冒, a character pair meaning to be affected by wind. Four unrelated languages, all encoding the same pre-modern theory, all still in daily use. Nobody believes it any more, and everybody still says it.

THE PATTERN THAT GIVES YOU A DOZEN WORDS FREE: വേദന (vedana) means pain, and Malayalam simply glues it onto the body part.
തല (thala) head → തലവേദന (thalavedana) headache
വയറ് (vayaru) stomach → വയറുവേദന (vayaruvedana) stomach ache
പല്ല് (pallu) tooth → പല്ലുവേദന (palluvedana) toothache

Also in the blocks: ചുമ (chuma) cough, and the vocabulary of the clinic, the pharmacy and the emergency.

Class 73 gives the explanation — how Malayalam frames pain, how Ayurvedic vocabulary works, what to expect in a clinic. Today we simply build the words into your mouth.

Quizzes below. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.

Health and Emergency Malayalam — Fever, Pain and the Word Pattern That Gives You a Dozen Words Free

Class 258 — the three cities: തിരുവനന്തപുരം, കൊച്ചി and കോഴിക്കോട്. Each with a character, and each a different place to learn Malayalam in.

തിരുവനന്തപുരം (Thiruvananthapuram), the capital. The name means the city of Anantha, the serpent on which Vishnu reclines, and the പദ്മനാഭസ്വാമി ക്ഷേത്രം at its centre houses exactly that image. Former capital of Travancore: the palace, the old fort, the colonial-era public buildings. What it is now is government — ministries, the secretariat, the universities — plus the technology park and the space centre at Thumba, where Kerala’s space programme began on a beach with rocket parts carried on a bicycle. Character: slower, more formal, more Malayalam-speaking. Speech: southern, എന്തുവാ for എന്താണ്.

കൊച്ചി (Kochi), the commercial capital, and the most cosmopolitan place in Kerala for six hundred years. Walk a few hundred metres in Fort Kochi and you pass the Chinese fishing nets, the Portuguese church where Vasco da Gama was first buried, the Dutch palace, the synagogue with its Chinese floor tiles, the Jain temple, the spice warehouses. That is not a curated heritage zone — it is what happens to a port that has traded with everybody for a very long time. Ernakulam across the water is the business city. And a warning for learners: Kochi is the hardest place in Kerala to learn Malayalam, because everybody switches to English immediately and competently.

കോഴിക്കോട് (Kozhikode), the Calicut of the history books. The great medieval port of the Zamorin; Vasco da Gama landed at Kappad in 1498 and the European maritime age began there. The word calico is this city’s name. Now: the food capital of the state by general agreement, and strongly literary. Character — the interesting one. Malayalis from elsewhere say Kozhikode people are the nicest in Kerala. Kozhikode people accept this as simple fact. Speech: northern, ഇങ്ങള് and ഞമ്മള്, Malabar rhythm, substantial Arabic-derived vocabulary.

Quizzes below. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.

The Three Cities of Kerala — Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode, and How Each One Speaks

Class 234 — Kerala’s sweets, snacks and the space between meals: the fried things in the glass case at the tea shop, the sweets at a festival, the thing somebody hands you at four in the afternoon.

The category word is പലഹാരം (palahaaram) — snack, savoury or sweet, eaten between meals or with tea. Ask ഇവിടെ എന്ത് പലഹാരമുണ്ട്? in any tea shop and you will get a list. കടി literally means a bite: a small savoury accompaniment to tea.

FROM THE GLASS CASE. പഴംപൊരി (pazhampori) — a ripe plantain sliced lengthways, battered, deep fried in coconut oil; sweet and soft inside, crisp outside, served hot at four. If you eat one thing from a Kerala tea shop, eat this. പരിപ്പുവട lentil fritter · ഉഴുന്നുവട black gram, doughnut-shaped · സുഖിയൻ · ഉള്ളിവട onion fritter · ബോണ്ട potato ball · കൊഴുക്കട്ട steamed rice dumpling · ഉണ്ണിയപ്പം, the small dark sweet rice-flour cake cooked in a pan of round depressions · ഏത്തയ്ക്ക ഉപ്പേരി banana chips · ശർക്കര വരട്ടി, the sticky jaggery-coated ones.

THE SWEETS. പായസം is a category, not a dish. And here is the distinction that will impress a Malayali: പ്രഥമൻ is the jaggery-and-coconut-milk family (അട പ്രഥമൻ, പരിപ്പ് പ്രഥമൻ, പഴം പ്രഥമൻ); പായസം with milk and sugar is the other (പാൽപ്പായസം, സേമിയ പായസം).

Then കോഴിക്കോടൻ ഹൽവ — dense, glossy, translucent, sold on Kozhikode’s Mittai Theruvu, Sweet Street, which is named after it. The word halwa is Arabic in origin and the sweet arrived with the trade. It is one of the clearest edible traces of Kerala’s Arab connection.

THE DRINKS. സംഭാരം spiced buttermilk, often given away free at temples in summer · മോര് plain buttermilk · കരിക്ക് tender coconut water · നാരങ്ങ വെള്ളം lime water · കട്ടൻ ചായ black tea · കട്ടൻ കാപ്പി black coffee.

And the four o’clock tea, which is a real institution rather than a pause. Order it: ഒരു ചായയും ഒരു പഴംപൊരിയും. Then ask ഇത് ചൂടാണോ? — is this hot, meaning fresh from the fryer. It is the right question.

Quizzes below. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.

Pazhampori at Four O Clock — Kerala Snacks, Sweets and Tea Shop Malayalam

Class 49. Texting and digital Malayalam — how Malayalis actually write to each other on a phone.

THE FACT THAT CHANGES HOW YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT THIS
A very large share of the Malayalam written between Malayalis every day is **not written in Malayalam script at all.** It is written in Manglish — Roman letters spelling out Malayalam sounds. Enthaa vishesham, typed exactly as you have been reading it in this course.

So the say-it spelling you have been using all along is not a training wheel. It is a real, living written register that millions of people use daily on their phones. You have been learning the alphabet of Kerala's text messages without knowing it.

**Which means you can start writing to Malayalis today, without waiting to learn the script.**

THE VOCABULARY — AND NOTICE HOW MUCH IS SIMPLY ENGLISH
സന്ദേശം (sandesham) a message — formal. Nobody types this. They type "message".
വിളി (vili) a call · ശബ്ദസന്ദേശം a voice message, formal; in practice "voice note" · അറിയിപ്പ് a notification — you met this in the business class as "a notice". Same word, new technology.

The internet layer is almost entirely English: internet, download, upload, link, password, account, profile — all straight in, taking Malayalam endings when needed. Link ayacho? — did you send the link. Password marannu — forgot the password.

Two that do have Malayalam words, which you will meet in menus rather than chat: തിരയൽ search · ക്രമീകരണം settings. Switch your phone to Malayalam and that is the word you will hunt for.

Social media is almost pure English — post, share, like, comment, follow, group, status, selfie, screenshot, viral — all unchanged, running on Malayalam grammar. ഞാൻ post ചെയ്തു. അവൾ share ചെയ്തു. That is the ചെയ്യുക engine from Class 37 doing exactly what it was built for.

THE CLASSIC OPENER
എന്താ വിശേഷം (entha vishesham) — what's up, what's new.

Taught by Dr. Reshmi R Nair.