Hi,
As a native English speaker trying to learn Malayalam, the single biggest challenge I have is that I cannot hear the difference between curled (retroflex) and uncurled consonants - a ന and a ണ, for example. I have been reading up on the current research on how to best overcome this challenge, and it turns out there is absoultely a way, but I need your help to get it set up for Malayalam! As discussed in the citations at the bottom of this post, what you need to do is identify words that differ ONLY in the target sound, create audio recordings of them, and then do repeated practice drills on these flashcards.
I have been trying to assemble such pairs for Malayalam, but it's hard for a non-native speaker. Can I enlist anyone here for help? In the end I'll compile it all for everyone to use - I think it could help a lot of people!
Here's what you can do: post as many pairs of words that differ only in whether the consonant is retroflex or not. I can track down audio files for them myself, unless it's easy enough for you to do it. Examples:
മറ / മഴ
കര / കറ
വല / വള
കനം / കണം
Can anyone come up with more? The list of all of the relevant letters to try to contrast is:
ട / ത / റ്റ
ണ / ന
ഷ / ശ / സ
ര / റ / ഴ
ല / ള
ഡ / ദ
O / ഥ / റ്റ
ഢ / ധ
Also useful would be any pairs you can think of constrasting the first and second or third and fourth consonants from each group:
ക / ഖ
ച / ഛ
പ / ഫ
ട / ഠ
ത / ഥ
ഗ / ഘ
ജ / ഝ
ബ / ഭ
ഡ / ഢ
ദ / ധ
Any and all input welcome!
(For more info on this method, see: the second half of this post https://fluent-forever.com/chapter3/#.VVuv_vlViko or the relevant chapter in the associated book for much more information).
I took the the free course,but not the paid course I mean.