The Dravidian family of languages is a fascinating one. It’s mostly prevalent in southern, central, and eastern India along with Sri Lanka and a few other countries. They include languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. We’ll be honest, these are not easy languages to learn on mobile devices. There aren’t a ton of apps with these languages and those that are usually give you phrases and words to learn. We highly recommend finding a real speaker to tutor you and only use the apps as supplemental study aids.
Here are the best apps for learning Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.
- 1. KidsLipi
- 2. 50 Languages
- 3. Learn Telugu Quickly
- 4. Learn Tamil Quickly
- 5. Learn Kannada
1. KidsLipi
(Android, iPhone, iPad)
KidsLipi is a language learning and practice app for developing kids’ understanding of a variety of Indian languages including Tamil, Telugu, Sanskrit and Gujarati. KidsLipi is a learning platform devoted to helping kids develop their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills in Indian regional languages.
Kids learn words and phrases using spoken words and visual cues such as images and text shown in English and the language’s script.
Price: Free with in-app purchases
Languages you can learn: Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Hindi
If we missed any of the Best apps for learning Telugu and Tamil, tell us about them!
2. 50 Languages
(Android, iPhone, iPad)
50 Languages is a less popular language learning platform. However, it supports a lot of languages that other platforms don’t support. That includes Dravidian languages like Telugu, Tamil and Kannada. The apps have around 100 lessons, including vocabulary and grammar, audio pronunciations, cross-platform support, and more. The apps are generally inexpensive and that’s good. It’s great for beginners and potentially intermediates.
Price: Free / Varies (usually around $2.99)
Languages you can learn: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada
3. Learn Telugu Quickly
(Android, iPhone, iPad)
This app is useful in learning the basics of the Telugu language and one of the best among Telugu learning apps in Play store. It includes voice over for the commonly used words of the language including wildlife, alphabets, fruits, vegetables, body parts, people, colors, verbs, numbers, sentences, adjectives, prepositions, pronouns, etc.
Price: Free
Language you can learn: Telugu
4. Learn Tamil Quickly
(Android, iPhone, iPad)
One of the simplest app to learn Tamil is Learn Tamil quickly. This app has many unique features including 100 lessons that will provide you with a basic vocabulary of the Tamil language. This free Tamil learning app will build your vocabulary using conversational Tamil. With no prior knowledge, you will learn Tamil and fluently speak short Tamil sentences in real-world situations in no time.
Price: Free
Language you can learn: Tamil
5. Learn Kannada
(Android)
This Kannada learning app helps people in familiarising themselves with spoken Kannada. You can start by learning simple words and easy sentences that can be used daily and gradually progress to relatively complex ones. The Application contains 300 sentences and 800 words that can be easily searched for. Besides this, there are sample conversations, punctuation guides and common words listed under different categories.
Price: Free
Language you can learn: Kannada
6. HelloTalk
(Android, iPhone, iPad)
HelloTalk and Tandem are two very interesting apps for learning languages. They’re both social communities. You pair with other users. They teach you their language and you teach them yours. Together, you learn new stuff. The apps both support audio and video calls along with various forms of messaging. Each one has a short list of unique features, but they mostly work the same way. Each one supports well over 100 languages. That includes at least some Dravidian languages as well.
Price: Free / $1.99-$4.99 per month / $21.99-$29.99 per year
Languages you can learn: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada
7. Simply Learn Languages
(Android, iPhone, iPad)
Simya is a developer on Google Play with a bunch of actually decent language apps. They work extremely well as phrasebooks. They usually have around 1,000 common words and phrases along with the alphabet and numbers. The apps also include quizzes, audio pronunciations, and flashcards. You can actually get pretty far with these apps. However, they do work best as a study aid or secondary source of information. Still, these apps are fairly cheap and work quite well. It supports Kannada, Tamil, Telugu.
Price: Free / Varies (usually around $4.99-$7.99 each)
Languages you can learn: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam
8. Google Play Books
(Android, iPhone, iPad)
Google Play Books (and similar platforms) sell a variety of language learning books. These are honestly not a bad way to learn. You can find audio books that teach common phrases and words. Additionally, there are books about the history of the languages with additional resources for learning. This is probably your best bet for learning Dravidian languages short of actually taking a real life class. Unfortunately, the books are rather expensive. Otherwise, it’s a decent source of information.
Price: Free / Book prices vary
Languages you can learn: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam
9. Shoonya Kids: Learn Languages
(iPhone, iPad)
Shoonya is a popular Telugu learning app. The app is designed to teach you the first five hundred words and phrases. Shoonya app is designed to help you learn the basic and most frequently used words of each language it covers. In some of these languages, it also shows how to write letters.
Price: Free
Languages you can learn: Telugu
10. YouTube
(Android, iPhone, iPad)
YouTube is a decent source for language learning tutorials. A few people even do the infrequent language tutorial for Dravidian languages. There are a bunch of creators out there that deal with language. Additionally, there are creators that speak these languages and that helps with comprehension. Like most apps on this list, it’s a secondary study aid. You can get some additional features for $12.99 per month, but for learning purposes, the free version works fine.
Price: Free / $12.99 per month
Languages you can learn: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam
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