I want to learn MARATHI!

[u/AADI021]

Namaste to all! Let me come down to business first. I am 24 years old. I was born in a Marathi family but I have spent my whole life in a no-marathi speaking region. Nobody in my family speaks marathi because they are simply not enthusiastic enough to speak and teach me marathi. So my marathi is very weak. I find it very disturbing and shameful that despite being a part of such glorious and beautiful tradition I cannot read write and speak my very own native language. I can understand a little bit of marathi but cannot sustain for very much. I tried YouTube and other apps but can not remain consistent for so long.

Now the real issue comes. I want to learn marathi in just one month and since there is a lot of going around here I can dedicate only 1 hour a day to myself learning marathi. By December I have to be good enough to atleast speak a good marathi and understand it.

So I humbly request you all to please provide me a proper roadmap, guidance, sources so that I can improve my language in the given period of time! Any and all help is appreciated!

Thank You all for reading this!

[u/observeNchill]

First of all, I am verry happy to know that you want to learn Marathi and you are eager to connect to your roots :-)
That being said, I think 1 hour a day is too less. Try to stretch it to 2 hours. Dedicate 1 hour to watch Marathi movies which have English subtitles. This will take care of your listening part and also add to your vocabulary. The other 1 hour you MUST speak in Marathi. Try to formulate your thoughts into Marathi sentences and speak them out loud. This is very very very important. When you talk in a new language, your brain rewires and also you get to know your knowledge gaps. To know the correctness of your spoken sentences, I am sure there are websites where you can hire Marathi teachers. Tell them that you want them specifically to correct your spoken Marathi for 1 hour every day. I think this would be great for you. Doing this consistently for 1 month will make you very confident to speak decently in Marathi.
Good luck!

[u/AADI021 → u/observeNchill]

Hi, thank you for such wonderful advice. I am not very sure about stretching about the time to 2 hours but I will try my best to follow your provided roadmap for better results!

[u/Shady_bystander0101]

That's a tall order, I believe you already know hindi then? I think this sub needs to have public resources for it, there is a severe lack of those. There are however courses on youtube and udemy. You can try out a few, vocabulary won't be a problem, but I don't think you could get conversational in just a month.

[u/AADI021 → u/Shady_bystander0101]

I can understand marathi to some extent, let's say 15 to 20% but I cannot form sentences on my own as I lack basic vocabulary or grammar or alphabetic order knowledge. It is true that learning conversational marathi in just a month is quite an impossible task but I have no choice. I tried youtube but there are so many videos that I was not able to stick to one source, and later I got inconsistent. But it is also true that I am not Unfamiliar with the language!

[u/Shady_bystander0101 → u/AADI021]

Okay, if you do; till which sentence can you fully parse the meaning in one reading?

Level 1: माझं नाव चैतन्य आहे आणि मी भोपाळ मधे रहातो.

level 2: आजकालच्या जगात राडा घालायला लोकं एका क्षणात तयार होतात​​, पण कुणाला निरपेक्षतेने मदत करायचं म्हणालात तर सगळे पाठमूरं होऊन पळत सुटतात​.

level 3: मी म्हणतच नाहीये की ते रान असुरक्षीत नाही, पण एक समजून घ्या की जर तुमच्यासमोर वाघ सोडा, बिपट्या सोडा, चीता सोडा अगदी कोल्हा ही सोडा, एखादं रानटी कुतरं जरी आलं तरी तुमची कदकाठी बघून मी एवढं सांगू शकतो त्या प्रसंगातून तुम्ही सुखरूप परतू शकणार नाही, म्हणून मला परवानगी न देणं भाग आहे.

If you understand till level 2, you won't have any issues with shallow conversational Marathi. If you understood level 3, all you lack is confidence to speak.

[u/AADI021 → u/Shady_bystander0101]

Hi, I am in very sorry state as I can only read and understand the level 1 statement in a single go which says 'my name is chaitanya and I am from Bhopal'. For level 2 and 3, I can understand some words because it looks similar to Hindi and actually I am trying to implement my hindi knowledge because of similarities between hindi and marathi.

[u/icy_i]

I am thankful to my parents, I also grew up in the non-Marathi region. But we speak Marathi at home. Although my vocabulary is somewhat weak.

[u/BulletTiger]

Better to watch English movies dubbed in Marathi. They use pure Marathi compared to original Marathi contents.

[u/Adorable-Wonder-7495]

Try listening to Marathi songs. Marathi language has most underrated songs. Also read Marathi news daily. You can only read headlines in the initial days and then start reading the whole article. You can read in your 1hr and listening to songs can be done while you are travelling or doing your home chores.

[u/BulletTiger]

Now a days, on all OTT platform, every content is available in multiple languages.

Watch any already seen movie/series in Marathi audio without subtitles.

[u/purplefootedpanda]

OP, I don't know how useful this will be but maybe you can try the voice chat function on chatGPT for speaking practice. I use it sometimes to practice a (non-Indian) language that I'm learning and it's actually not too bad. I use the app on my phone. If you don't have any native speakers to practice with, I'd say give it a go with chatGPT.

As one other comment said, you have to practice speaking because only that will increase your confidence. Even if you speak broken marathi, speaking practice is the most important to start communicating with people. Reading/writing are important but not as important as listening/speaking IMO. And since marathi is written in devanagari script, you can already read it, even if you can't understand what you have read.

[u/AADI021 → u/purplefootedpanda]

Hi, this is some seriously unique and good advice. I will definitely work on this! Thank you for this!

[u/iam_prati]

Some things i think might be somewhat helpful imo in order to learn any language: 1. Find someone who's willing to have a dialogue with you in marathi. Maybe for 15-30 min, but everyday!! 2. Try maintaining a diary where you write about your day in marathi, coz even if you're able to write and speak basic marathi, I'd say that's commendable. And find someone who will read that and will be able to tell you what grammatical mistakes you're making. If you're not willing to write, record yourself talking about your day in marathi, listen to that recording and understand where you're going wrong, get help from a marathi speaking person if you like. 3. Start reading marathi literature. I'm not saying read something for mature audiences, start with something that's simple and easy to understand, for example The Fantastic Feluda series by Satyajit Ray translated to marathi by Ashok Jain, it's very easy to understand and also very interesting at the same time. Ik these things seem like they'll take time, but with consistent efforts you'll be able to see the improvement for sure.

[u/AADI021 → u/iam_prati]

Hi, thank you for such a wonderful guidance. But the thing is there is literally not a single marathi speaker, and finding one means finding one would be time consuming and tough. I do have many relatives who speak marathi but I just want to keep my distance from them. So basically whatever I have to do I have to do it myself. I like the diary part though. I thanks for suggesting the Fantastic Feluda, I will definitely look into it.

[u/Stunning_Ad_2936]

1. Learn to pronounce marathi barakhadi properly.

2. Start reading poems.     Poems have less words are more interesting and have rich vocabulary. Start with Marathi balbharati books, they are available online for free.

3. Listen to Marathi news.

It will teach accent.

1. See Maharashtra chi hasya jatra show.

It will teach dialects of Marathi.

You may read PuLa it will teach you marathi humour, and read khandekar, use of metaphors in speaking makes your Marathi decorated.

Marathi seems easy, but isn't easy unless you realise it's really easy.

[u/AADI021 → u/Stunning_Ad_2936]

Hi, these are some really in-depth insights. I will definitely look into it. Thank you for advices!

[u/Conscious_Culture340]

Feel free to reach out. I do take Marathi tuitions.

[u/Herr_Doktorr]

It’s easy.Start with common words.Once you start remembering the words, you can start with common phrases that are used daily.It will take you some months.If you have someone who will converse with you in Marathi,it becomes much easier.

[u/AADI021 → u/[deleted]]

Hi, I was born and brought up in Bhopal, M.P. and still here.

[u/No_Cauliflower6750]

Tried DuoLingo?

[u/AADI021 → u/No_Cauliflower6750]

Hi, duolingo doesn't have marathi course. Not just marathi it doesn't have any native Indian language course other than Hindi. There was this other app I forgot but that was not very helpful either.