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The Guided Course - Part 1 The Bangla Alphabet & Part 2 Conversational Bangla

Course Overview and Familiarization

Course Objective

Learning a new language does take some effort and hard work. Self study with formal text books in a classroom environment may take too long to produce visible progress. This course is designed for Internet users who want to learn the fundamentals of Bangla to be able to participate in conversations in Bangla.

This is an immersive 9 Lesson course that can be completed in 14 weeks of intensive study. You can also just follow the Lesson Plan and take the course at your own pace. I will help you through email (sen.supriyo@gmail.com) if you have any questions.

The Teaching Method

We know that a five-year-old child can speak in grammatically correct sentences in their "Mother Tongue." They do not have a large vocabulary at that point, but manage to express themselves adequately. Linguists theorize that humans are born with a "language instinct" and they pick up the nuances of grammatical construction from their parents' conversations.

The teaching method in this site emulates how a child would learn their "Mother Tongue".

  1. Learning the Alphabet
    First, you would have to familiarize yourself with the Bangla Alphabet - Vowels and Consonants. Next, you need to understand how the sound of a Consonant is modified by Vowels (represented as diacritics). Finally, you have to learn the concept of Compound Consonants, where a consonant sound immediately follows another Consonant.
  2. Words and Vocabulary
    Words are made up from the letters in the Alphabet. A large vocabulary of words is useful only if you understand how they can be put together in grammatically correct Sentence.
  3. Grammar & Sentence Formation
    A grammar framework needs to be established early, incuding common Parts of Speech (like Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, etc.) similar to what you already know in English. Then vocabulary words are introduced within this framework. Sample sentences are used to put these words in a learning context. The learning process includes the student's ability to experience writing the Bangla sentences as you learn new words.

This approach will appear to be different from most Bangla textbooks and the large variety of resources available on the Internet. Your learning will be easier and your comprehension will be deeper if you work through the Lessons presented below.

Part 1 - The Bangla Alphabet

There are 11 Vowels and 39 Consonants in common use in Bangla.

Vowels

LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuiz to Verify Understanding
  • Vowels
    Letter name, Phonetic Representation, Nearest English sound (mp3)
  • Vowels
  • Vowels

    • Consonants

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Consonants
    Letter name, Phonetic Representation, Nearest English sound (mp3)
  • Consonants
  • Consonants-1
  • Consonants-2
  • Consonants-3

    • Word with Vowels & Consonants

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Sample Bangla Words with Vowels & Consonants
  • Sample Bangla Words with Vowels & Consonants

    • Vowel Signs and Compound Consonants

    Bangla (like other Sanskrit-based languages) allows transformation of Vowels and Consonants. In this lesson we will address two concepts common to all Indic Languages - Vowel Signs and Compound Consonants.

    When a vowel sound modifies a consonant, the vowel is written as a diacritic attached to the consonant. When two or more consonant sounds are pronounced together, a compound consonant is formed.

    Vowel Signs (-kars) applied to Consonants

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Vowel Signs (-kars) applied to Consonants
  • Vowel Signs (-kars) applied to Consonants
  • Vowel Signs (Diacritics)

    • Words with Vowel Signs

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Sample Bangla Words with Vowels Signs
  • Sample Bangla Words with Vowels Signs-1
  • Sample Bangla Words with Vowels Signs-2

    • Compound Consonants

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Compound Consonants
  • Compound Consonants
  • Compound Consonants

    • Words with Compound Consonants

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Words with Compound Consonants
  • Sample Bangla Words with Compound Consonants

    • Review of Bangla Alphabet

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Alphabet Review-sohoj paTh
  • Alphabet Review-sohoj paTh

    • Part 2 - Conversational Bangla

    If you feel that you need more time to master the Bangla Alphabet, don't worry. You should come back and repeat the previous sections. Repetition aids memory! Since all material is presented in Bangla and Phonetic English, you will have plenty of opportunity to solidify your understanding of Bangla Alphabets as we move forward in the course.

    This section lays the foundation blocks of Bangla Grammar using your knowledge of English grammatical structure. You will learn about the grammatical construction of Bangla - the Subject, Object and Verb clauses in a sentence. The difference between English (Subject-Verb-Object) and Bangla (Subject-Object-Verb) sentence will be examined.

    Preface

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Preface
  • Preface

    • Phonetic Representation of the Bangla Alphabet

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • The Bangla Alphabet and English Phonetic Representation
  • The Bangla Alphabet and English Phonetic Representation

    • Words and Grammatical Parts of Speech

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Words, Parts of Speech and Forming Grammatically Correct Sentences
  • Words, Parts of Speech and Forming Grammatically Correct Sentences

    • Nouns, Pronouns, Determiners and Verbs

    We will now start to use some of the most common Parts of Speech. In this lesson, based on Chapters 4-7 of "Introduction to Conversational Bangla", you will first find a small set of Pronouns, Nouns, Determiners and Verbs, enough to start making some sentences. Then we will start on a vocabulary enriching set of Pronouns and Nouns. Detailed study of Verbs will be in the next Lesson. In this lesson, we want to let you think in terms of the Subject and Object phrases, where Nouns and Pronouns are predominantly used.

    Essential Parts of Speech - Nouns, Pronouns, Determiners and Verbs

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • The Essential Parts of Speech – Nouns, Pronouns, Determiners and Verbs
  • The Essential Parts of Speech – Nouns, Pronouns, Determiners and Verbs
  • Bangla Parts of Speech, Sentence Structure
  • Determiners

    • More Pronouns

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • More Pronouns – Words Replacing Nouns
  • More Pronouns – Words Replacing Nouns
  • Pronouns-1 Pronouns-2

    • More Nouns

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • More Nouns – Names of Person, Place or Thing
  • More Nouns-1
  • More Nouns-2
  • More Nouns-3
  • More Nouns-4
  • More Nouns-Entities
  • More Nouns-Parts of the Body
  • More Nouns-Time
  • More Nouns-Nature
  • More Nouns-Animals
  • More Nouns-Birds
  • More Nouns-Vegetables
  • More Nouns-Fruits
  • More Nouns-Miscellaneous Things
  • More Nouns-Numbers

    • Possessive Case for Nouns and Pronouns

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Possessive Case for Nouns & Pronouns
  • Possessive Case for Nouns & Pronouns

    • Verbs and Verb Conjugations

    We have looked at Nouns, Pronouns, and Determiners. It is now necessary to study Verbs. Verbs and Verb Conjugations are the most difficult topic for new learners because of the number of new words you have to memorize. Here, however, we will try to show you patterns in words and word-endings so that you can learn a lot of new words and predict the conjugations as you learn them. The course material is in Chapter 8 of "Introduction to Conversational Bangla." Extensive use is made of the Verb Conjugation Wizard to study patterns in the conjugated verb forms.

    Verbs – Words of Action – and Conjugation

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Verbs – Words of Action – and Conjugation
  • Verbs - Intro
  • Verbs - Hear/Say/See
  • Verbs - Learning/Skills
  • Verbs - Personal, Daily, People and General Actions
  • Verbs - Travel, Transact, Events
  • Verbs-Everyday Actions 1
  • Verbs-Everyday Actions 2
  • Verbs-Everyday Actions 3
  • Verbs-Everyday Actions 4
  • Verbs-Everyday Actions 5
  • Verbs-Everyday Actions 6
  • Verbs-Everyday Actions 7
  • Verbs-People Actions 1
  • Verbs-People Actions 2
  • Verbs-People Actions 3
  • Verbs-Article Exchange Actions

    • The Verb Conjugation Wizard

    Lesson
  • Learn to use the Verb Conjugation Wizard

    • Sentence Construction in Bangla

    You should be able to make grammatically correct sentences with the rules of grammar you learnt in the Lessons so far. Instead of learning more words, let us start to make some sentences using the words you have already learnt. Extensive use is made of the Sentence Construction Wizard in working through the sample sentences.

    The Sentence Construction Wizard

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Learn to use the Sentence Construction Wizard to make sentences with Nouns, Pronouns, Determiners and Verbs only. I will provide some help in a post and some exercises for you to use the Wizard.
  • The Sentence Construction Wizard - Intro
  • The Sentence Construction Wizard - 3 Sample Sentences

    • Adverbs, Adjectives, Prepositions, Conjunctions

    We now will learn about some less common Parts of Speech and two Miscellaneous topics. This lesson is based on Chapters 9-14 of "Introduction to Conversational Bangla" and looks at Adverbs, Adjectives, Prepositions and Conjunctions. Two miscellaneous topics - Yes/No and Punctuation are also presented.

    Adverbs

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Adverbs – Words Describing Verbs
  • Adverbs – Words Describing Verbs
  • Adverb01
  • Adverb02

    • Adjectives

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Adjectives – Words Describing Nouns
  • Adjectives – Words Describing Nouns
  • Adjectives=1
  • Adjectives-2
  • Adjectives-3

    • Prepositions

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Prepositions – Describing Positions of Nouns
  • Prepositions
  • Prepositions-1
  • Prepositions-2
  • Prepositions-3

    • Conjunctions

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Conjunctions – Words Joining Nouns or Phrases
  • Conjunctions – Words Joining Nouns or Phrases
  • Conjunctions

    • Yes, No and Verb Negation(Not)

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Yes, No and Not
  • Yes, No and Not

    • Punctuation

    LessonVideo Clips of LessonQuizzes to Verify Understanding
  • Punctuation
  • Punctuation

    • Review of Grammar Rules

    We have now covered the major Parts of Speech and should be able to form Sentences with the Words you have learnt. We will spend some time in reviewing the Grammar Rules you have learnt, before going back for more vocabulary building.

    Conversations Applying Grammar Rules

    Lesson
  • Examples of Conversations Applying Grammar Rules

    • Summary of Grammar Rules

    Lesson
  • Summary of Grammar Rules for Conversational Bangla

    • Practice with Sentence Construction Wizard

    Lesson
  • Go back to the Sentence Construction Wizard and expand upon the sentences you were creating in Lesson 5. This time apply some Adjectives and Adverbs and possibly use some Prepositions in your Sentences.

    • Review and Assessment of Course Material

    You have been through a tsunami of new information in this online course. If you have come this far, my heartiest congratulations! You may not remember all the words you learnt. You may have self-doubt on how deep your understanding is of some of the grammar constructs used here. However, you now have a pretty good basis for further study of the Bangla language. This would be a good time to record which parts you should go back to and what words you need to learn/relearn to carry on a conversation in Bangla.

    On completion of this course, the student should go through each lesson and write an evaluation. This could be under the following headings.

    On a scale of 1 to 5, how well did you understand and remember the material presented?

    • Which parts were the easiest to master?
    • Which parts were most difficult?
    • Can you suggest any approach that would have made learning easier?
    • Did you do the suggested quizzes in each lesson?

    Resources Checklist

  • All words taught in Conversational Bangla are in Wordlist Glossary
  • Check your pronunciation at Pronunciation Wizard
  • Help for Verb Conjugation is at Verb Conjugation Wizard
  • Help for forming Grammatically correct sentences is at Sentence Construction Wizard.
  • If you come across an unfamiliar piece of Bangla Text, you can get to read it with assistance of English by going to Assisted Bangla Text Reader
  • To keep yourself in the habit of reading some Bangla text every day, you should try out the Daily News at Assisted Reading of Daily News
  • Three different ways to write Bangla on a computer have been presented on this site. All these methods have the advantage of not requiring the user to have to install ANY software on their computer.
    1. Fastest Bangla input for expert writers, using Transliteration at Google Transliteration
    2. Specifically designed for learners and occasional users, write in Phonetic English with Spelling Assist at Write Bangla Phonetically
    3. Click on Bangla letters on a Visual Bangla Keyboard and see the Bangla word as it forms Visual Keyboard