Telugu Learning Resources

Last Updated on 4^th July 2008

Paper Books

1) Conversational Telugu, A Microwave approach

by N.D. Krishnamurthy, J. Venkateswara Sastry

Published by NDK Institute of Languages, Bangalore

Excellent book. Only English (Latin) script is used and so one does not need to know Telugu script. The book is quite comprehensive and modern (as compared to C.P. Brown, Sankaranarayana etc.). I found this book to be very useful when I was learning (and still continue to learn) Telugu. This book deals with Telugu grammar as well and I feel that it hits the sweet spot in having just the right amount of grammar one needs to learn to converse in Telugu reasonably.

Available at Sapna Book Store, Bangalore for around Rs. 300/-

url: http://sapnaonline.com/

Contact Telephone: 91-80-40114455

Note that Sapna has 3 or 4 outlets in Bangalore.

2) Learn Telugu in 30 days, National Integration Language series.

A starter book. Nonetheless, I found it quite useful when I was starting to learn Telugu.

It is available quite freely in most bookshops (even railway station bookshops).

3) Gwynn, J. P. L. (John Peter Lucius). A Telugu-English dictionary. Delhi; New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

This seems to be an excellent dictionary using English (Latin) script only. Unfortunately it does not seem to be stocked in India - OUP India site does not list it in its search results. It is listed on amazon as unavailable. Perhaps lack of sales has resulted in this book going out of print!!

A searchable (only) online version of the book is available at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/gwynn/ See the online section below for more details.

4) Telugu English Dictionary by P. Sankaranarayana,

Revised and Enlarged Edition

Published by Asian Educational Services. Available at sapnaonline.com

Good dictionary but needs Telugu script knowledge.

Online sites

1) http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/gwynn/ - A searchable dictionary where English (Latin) script can be used. However getting just the right English 'spelling' for a Telugu word can be a tricky affair. But the dictionary seems to be quite comprehensive.

By using the search options well, one can even list all words containing the letters we are searching for. E.g. to list all words starting with 'cu', we should choose the check box "Search entry words only (not definitions)" and the radio button "Words starting with". This lists all words containing the letters 'cu' in it (unfortunately it seems to ignore the "Words starting with" radio button selection).

To use the search page effectively (and to understand the definitions) it is important to know the mappings of English letters to Telugu as used by this dictionary. My rough understanding of the mapping is given below (but there surely can be some errors on my part):

Vowels

a	aa	i	ii	u	uu	ṛ
e	ee	ay	o	oo	aw	am	ah

Notes

• ṛ is the vowel used in the Telugu (and Sanskrit) word 'ṛNam' for debt which roughly can be pronounced as runam.
• ay is pronounced more like ai. E.g. The dictionary 'spells' Siva's abode as 'kaylaasam' (instead of 'kailaasam' which is what one would expect).
• There are no words starting with am or ah in this dictionary.

Consonants

ka	kha	ga	gha	nga	ca	cha	ja	jha	nya
Ta	Tha	Da	Dha	Na	ta	tha	da	dha	na
pa	pha	ba	bha	ma	ya	ra	la	La	wa
śa	Sa	sa	ha	kS

Notes

• 'nga' is a rarely used letter in Telugu. I do not know the English 'spelling' that this dictionary has used for this letter.
• 'ca' is actually pronounced more like cha. E.g. 'cancala' in the dictionary means unsteady and the Telugu word is the same as the Hindi (and perhaps Sanskrit) word which one would perhaps write in English as chanchala.
• 'cha' is the next consonant and pronounced more like 'chha'. E.g. 'chaaya' in the dictionary means shadow and is the same as the Hindi word.
• 'nya' is also a rarely used letter in Telugu. I do not know the English 'spelling' that this dictionary has used for this letter.
• 'Ta' is the hard pronunciation and 'ta' is the softer one. E.g' 'taTTu' - verb form means knock (on the door) and the Tamil word is similar. One may expect the English 'spelling' to be 'thattu' but the dictionary uses 'taTTu' (probably because it needs Ta, Tha, ta and tha for the four consonant letters related to the 'ta' sound).
• E.g. of Na is 'puNyam' - merit
• E.g. of 'wa' is 'waccu' - to come. We Indians would perhaps write it as vacchu. While searching one should note that the dictionary only has 'wa' consonant and no 'va' consonant.
• 'sa' is of three kinds, śa (note the accent above s) e.g. 'śiwaraatri' (which we may spell as shivraathri), one shown as uppercase S e.g. 'SaSTi' - sixty (which we may spell as shashti) and one shown as lowercase s without an accent e.g. 'sankalpam' - resolve (which we also may spell as sankalpam). Telugu words seem to use the 'sa' letter represented as uppercase S in this dictionary, quite sparingly, as compared to the other two 'sa' letters.
• E.g. of 'kS' is 'kSama' - forgiveness.

Consonant-Vowel combinations

Each consonant combines with the vowels above. For example:

ka	kaa	ki	kii	ku	kuu	kṛ
ke	kee	kay	ko	koo	kaw	kam	kah

After that we have a similar combination for half ka + ra (consonant ra and not vowel ṛ)

kra

kraa

kri

krii

etc.

Further combinations are possible e.g. half da + wa giving us dwa

Also see:
Telugu Alphabet page on Omniglot: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/telugu.htm

Telugu Letters from Unipad (a Unicode Text editor) reference pages: http://www.unipad.org/unimap/index.php?param_char=&param_block=Telugu

Clicking on any Telugu letter in the UniMap figure of the above page gives details about that letter.

2) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=fXEIAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Telugu+English+Dictionary#PPA5-IA1,M1 : Has Telugu and English script for words and so is useful for person not knowing Telugu script. Entire book is downloadable for free (Download PDF link on the right hand side of above URL). It seems to be an antique piece :-) but may still be worthwhile. Could not search within the PDF and so it is difficult to reach the page containing the word one is looking for. Have not used it much myself and so can't comment properly on it.

3) http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/brown/ - Searchable book. English (Latin) script can be used. C.P.Brown's dictionary is a well known but old Telugu English dictionary.

4) http://telugu2english.blogspot.com/ - This seems to be an interesting site with a list of resources.

5) http://www.sahiti.org/dict/ - Telugu script has to be used. Have not used it much yet.

6) http://ltrc.iiit.net/onlineServices/Dictionaries/Eng-Tel/aboutEngTelDict.html - Site is supposed to allow download of open source version of C.P.Brown dictionary. I have not been able to do it. The site mentions an ISCII plug-in but I recall that I had tried to set that up too in the past and was unsuccessful in either setting up the plugin or in downloading the dictionary.

7) Google Books: http://books.google.co.in/books

Search for Telugu English dictionary. The dictionaries of C.P. Brown and V. Rao Vemuri are available for partial viewing online. But both need knowledge of Telugu script.