Creativity to compensate

If you read the previous post on the almost forgotten Tamil, tonight promised more fun.

I ask Jr. "What is the Tamil word for Squirrel?"

She goes into thinking mode, taps her finger to her lips a few times and goes 

"Is it Mara Eli?" 

Burst out laughing. Maram is tree in Tamil. Eli is rat. She called it a Tree Rat. Do not know how she gets this.

The sad thing is that the little one knew the answer to be "Anil" for squirrel.

That answer made me sad first but made me smile a second later.

Sad because Apple : English :: Anil : Tamil

In Tamil you teach the vowels first and it goes a, aa, e, ee.. and the first picture in every Tamil book ? 

A is for Anil ! So the fact that it escaped Jr. is sad.

But my sadness gave way to a smile because it takes a very imaginative kid to go all the way and connect the words for tree and rat and make a creative name for another "rodent?" that climbs trees.. So the imaginative streak make me feel very proud! 

I could not have thought of a Squirrel as a Tree Rat in a million years!

We play a new gave now at bedtime. Anything that anyone has to say to the other two people has to be said in Tamil.. It was hilarious. They actually made an effort and were really good at it too getting creative on using their imagination to compensate for their vocabulary!

Next thing we know.. we will be back to bear and animal stories.. (you have to watch the last few seconds of the first video on this old post to get the reference!)

They never cease to amaze!

Almost forgotten..

This year we did not put the kids in Tamil school. The 2 plus hour time commit every sunday, not to mention the 5+ hours spent by San for preparing them for exams and such were simply out of reach even by thought in August. Why?

At that time it was a very likely possibility that yours truly would be traveling to Austin more frequently this Tamil School year. That concept came to an untimely end, but nevertheless it seems to have been a wise move. What with grand parents being around and our ability to take them to visit local places on Sunday, me going to Yoga Sunday morning to compensate for all the absenteeism during weekdays, long bike rides with kids on Sunday mornings after yoga class.. it has definitely been a plus getting those two hours back on Sunday.

However.. there is a big however here.. The kids have almost forgotten everything they learned in the last three years of Tamil school in less than three months. One would think that the grandparents being physically here and all what with them talking exclusively in Tamil with the kids and between themselves, their proficicency in the spoken language would improve! Not really. 

Apparently the little one overheard grandma betting with Sangeetha "give me one month and will make her talk to me in Tamil".. so she takes this up as a personal challenge of sorts and tells herself "give me one month and I will make granda talk to me in English".

So we are now 4/12 months into my parents 5 1/2 month trip and Grandma is exclusively talking to grand daughter in English. The little one came and bragged to me at bedtime last week "You know. Grandma thought she was going to make me talk in Tamil. Guess who is talking in English now?"

Told her "Shame on you. Grandma knows English and Tamil. She taught English and is a school teacher. You have forgotten Tamil. This is not a challenge. She said it as a wish". Somehow my little beration didn't make any impact and was promptly brushed aside as "rantings from a patriarch not worth giving a damn" and off she went to watching some more Phineas and Ferb on youtube.

So the last one week has seen a revival of the bedtime Tamil Quiz. We sure had some fun early rounds with the kids making up imaginary words when asked to translate words from English to Tamil.  

Asked the little one what is the word for Wheel?

She goes "Is it tayaru?"

We all burst out laughing. Told her Tyre is an English word even if spoken in this house with a Tamil accent. 

Even Jr. starts forgetting things and when I ask her what is for Clouds she goes "Vaanam panju?" (Cloud cotton?). Seriously didn't know at that point if I should laugh or cry.

We have now covered all animals, birds, fruits, vegetables, landforms and everyday objects around the house. 

The bedtime crash course is in full swing. They also seem to have lost the abiltiy to identify any Carnatic music ragas. They could identify 20+ last year. Now it is down to random guessing.  

Lot of work ahead.... but bedtime is becoming a laugh riot!

Post It

Last weekend was the Tamil School final exam.

San was working hard with the kids making sure they remembered their vocabulary words and making sure the kids wrote the dictation words correctly.

The little one made the same mistake on two rounds of dictation at which point she exclaimed

"I am going to write down this word on a post it note and stick it on the table before the exam!"

Me and San : That is not allowed! You have to remember it.

LO : I remember everything else. This one I am remembering something wrong because I learned it wrong the first time.

Me : looks like she doesn't have a memory override function in her brain

San : She wants to legitimize copying!

Well the folks at post it should be proud that a 6 year old has come up with the most obvious application for the note pad!

San finally drilled the correct spelling into the little one's head and she did well in the finals.

Now we are done with Tamil school for the year!

.

The Android newbie..

Have been a bit on the busy side the last couple of days. One main reason is that my company gave me a brand new phone. It is a phone new to the company as well and I have volunteered to be the Guinea pig on this one..

After getting so many complaints from me about poor AT&T service on my iPhone (note we live in Cupertino, the birthplace of apple but the iPhone has the worst signal coverage with AT&T in this area as the locals have banned the cell phone towers around us as it will be an eyesore on the mountain skyline!) switched me over to Sprint. Also this happens to be an android phone.

Right now there are 4 bars on the phone and the phone works as a phone very well. (Duh?)

It took me two days to figure out the menus, the look and feel of the phone as well as andoid quirks. Have almost made the menus and screens look identical to what was on my iPhone! We are creatures of habit and the fingers automatically to to a certain spot on the phone to check calendar, mail or make a phone call... so now we have an Android phone with 4 rows of 4 apps which look 1:1 like the iPhone screen.

The kids helped me find their stuff too and it is all in there on the second and third screen..

Only issues so far?

No way to see Tamil Fonts. People write stuff in Tamil in emails sent to me, google+ etc and all I get is a bunch of rectangles. Don't know if there is an easy way to support complex fonts or the Android guys simply havent provided support for Tamil fonts yet..

The iPhone was showing Tamil fonts fine. It just didn't work well as a phone...

Also this thing has two cameras, one on the front as well and should enable video chat! Except the gtalk has no videochat enabled on this. So we have to download some other app to do this and sign into google through that app. Do not know how safe that is. So if you have figured out a way to do gtalk with video on a Photon 4G, let me know as well.

Thanks in advance.

Also, many thanks to all of you who gave us tips on the whole birth certificate thing. Really really helpful. Much appreciated!

.

How does one?

Go make an electronic story book in app form for a Tamizh story?

Would like to try my hand at making an animated story which my grandmother told us, which was told to her by her grandmother..

That means this story is at least a 100+ years old, probably older

The story is about an "eee" ஈ (housefly) who forgot its name and went asking different people/things if they knew its name.

Any suggestions for software, methods etc. greatly appreciated!

Would like to make this a weekend project of sorts.

While in grad school I helped create many educational self teach programs using a software called "Authorware Pro" on a Macintosh Quadra (yep, that was ages ago.. before internet days) and it was given good reviews by many students who used it.

It was difficult even to find these on google search and some of the pages open only on Internet Explorer and don't open on firefox. Was also sad to see my name not on the credits for some stuff I really put my heart and soul into, but I digress.. It does not matter now.

Things have come a long way since those days, what with Flash and Youtube and of course the internet!

Hopefully you will see an animated story titled:

"Kozhu Kozhu Kanne, en peyar enna?"

கொழு கொழு கன்னே, என் பெயர் என்ன?

(plump plump calf, what is my name?)

and the calf says "Theriyaadhe!" தெரியாதே ! (I don't know!)

and off he goes to the next person with the same answer till he finally gets his name!

Jr. and the little one absolutely love this story when my mom narrates it to them and my nephew thinks I am the greatest story teller in the world for my embellished version of this story!

This old dog is up for some new tricks!

So, please, point me toward the right tools..

.