Lingoflyந — soft na
«soft na» is a consonant of the Tamil script, read as “na”. Soft dental 'n'; words begin with it. For example, in the word “நல்ல” (nalla) — good. The Tamil alphabet has 31 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. The three 'n's of Tamil divide the places in a word among themselves: ந at the start, ன in the middle and at the end, ண after the hard ones. It appears, for example, in the word “நன்றி” (naṉṟi) — thank you.
In short
| Character | ந |
| Name | soft na |
| Sound | na |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 22nd of 49: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ண and ம, appears in 575 words of this site.
How to type ந
- On a phone: add the Tamil keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+0BA8 and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 0BA8.
- Unicode code point: U+0BA8. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
Soft dental 'n'; words begin with it
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
The character in the “mellinam — the six nasals” group
One nasal for each hard one: ங with க, ஞ with ச, ண with ட, ந with த, ம with ப, ன with ற. The pair always goes together, and the nasal lets one guess which consonant will come next.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «soft na» it is “na”, as in the word “நல்ல” (nalla)), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 31 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Tamil character ந read?
As “na” — it is a consonant of the Tamil script. Soft dental 'n'; words begin with it. For example, in the word “நல்ல” (nalla) — good.
What is the letter ந called?
Soft na. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Tamil script: it is called “soft na” and reads as “na”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.