Tamil numbers 1–10

Tamil personal pronouns

Tamil pronouns vary by formality and inclusivity. Master these and you can structure most basic sentences.

Tamil present tense verbs

Tamil present tense inserts the marker -கிற- (-kiṟ-) between the verb stem and the person-and-number ending. Here it is conjugated for "செய்" (sey, "to do").

Tamil negation with இல்லை

இல்லை (illai) is Tamil's all-purpose negator — it denies existence, possession, and identity, and is also the everyday word for "no."

Tamil case suffixes

Tamil is agglutinative — case suffixes attach directly to the end of a noun instead of using separate preposition words.

Tamil question words & yes/no questions

Tamil wh-questions use a fixed set of question words; yes/no questions are formed by adding -ஆ (-ā) to the end of the verb or word being questioned.

Tamil sentence structure — building a basic sentence

Tamil follows Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) order. Descriptive words come before the noun, and case suffixes attach after it.