Reading Tamil

I made a conscious decision to devote more time to Tamil reading. Though I’ve always been able to read Tamil for many years now, it comes nowhere close to the speed with which I can read English. This has to be put right.

As far as English mags, newspapers or novels are concerned, I don’t ‘read’ the words in them as much as I ‘see’ them and associate meanings and comprehend. I guess this must be true for anybody who’s been reading stuff in any language for a long duration of time. I’m quite proud of my English reading speed.

Now, I’m not sure if I can acquire that much proficiency in Tamil (after all, it has taken close to 30 years of reading stuff in English to reach this level) but I intend to make a start now. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. It is still takes an effort to complete reading a 10 page article in any tamil magazine. That is if the article is interesting ! Else I often catch myself giving up midway.

However, there has been a significant improvement over the past one month. I’ve forced myself to read lengthy stories and political analysis. This is a far cry from the days I used to just read the jokes that punctuate the pages in any Tamil magazine you pick up and be done with it. As of now, just to make things easier, I’m devoting more time to movie reviews, gossip columns and the like in Ananda Vikatan, Kumudam etc ! Those will be interesting and spicy and will help keep me absorbed J The droll heavy stuff can wait.