Learning Spoken Tamil

i'll abbreviate pronounced to "p:" i figured if i wanted to say 'i want to go to sleep' i could say something like: naan thungi (p: thoongee) veenum (p: vaynoom) literally: I sleep want but for expressing desires, ennakku is used, not naan. also, veenum is the desire expressing word. but i think you can only use 'veenum' with nouns, not verbs. so it's normal to say: ennaku coffee veenum (i want coffee) to express 'i want to sleep', people will say: ennakku thungi pooganum i have no idea how poo gets conjugated into pooganum. i read the -num comes from veenum, but the g? fuck if i know, please tell me if you do. also in all these books, they will say why / what / how are een / enna / epadi, but when people say it it sounds like there's a Y in front: een -> yayn enna -> yenna epadi -> yepadi ennaku -> yennaku

to the spoken tamil struggle blog. i am currently in a super rural village Thenkasi where no one speaks much english so i must learn tamil to stop feeling like a dumb alien. unfortunately there are very few resources to learn spoken tamil. unlike with spanish, google translate will not help you at all. no one speaks like that. for example, they translate "have you eaten?", which is probably the question i've heard the most, to "Nīṅkaḷ cāppiṭṭīrkaḷā" which i have never heard anyone say. most people say: "niinga sapdiingaalaa?" i've found three books that i reference. all of them give slightly different translations, so i think the only way to really learn is to go to the place you want to speak in, keep track of how people are talking, decipher the meanings, and then parrot their mannerisms / dialect without thinking too much about grammar.  here they are: 1. colloquial tamil by asher 2. SPOKEN TAMIL FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS by Sanjay D (the title is ...