My (lack of) language skills

This December I would complete my second MBA from the University of Akron. Ten years back if anyone would have told me that I would pursue a masters degree, everyone, including me would have ridiculed the thought itself. Today after 19 years of education if I am worried about one thing, it’s my language skills, be it English or Tamil (my mother tongue). I can’t write without spelling and grammar mistakes. Our in-house proof reader (Lakshmi) pokes at my grammar whenever she gets a chance. While I was in India, whenever I sent an email, I would get a reply which is basically a corrected version of my email. If not for today’s word processors features, I would think twice before writing anything in English. Tamil, I just cannot write.


I still remember my eleventh standard tamil teacher reading my answer paper to the class on how not to write tamil (however he gave me a pass grade saying the content was correct and the ONLY issue was # of spelling mistakes). I studied in 12 different schools before completing my 12th standard and certainly it dint help my language skills. The main reason for the frequent change in schools was my dismal performance and my father’s transferable bank job. In terms of medium, standard and board of schools, I have studied in all type of schools ranging from tamil, english, hindi medium schools to state, central, private, Anglo Indian to a Ooty boarding school to a Tiruchi Tapovanam to a Madras corporation school to a private city convent, I have seen it all. Due to my own lack of performance in school and frequent change in schools, I really lost out on my language skills. To sum it up, I learned the importance of ‘Illamaiyil Kal’ in the hard way (study when you are young).


English, the occupational language is not really bothering me as much as tamil. I get lot of opportunities to speak, read and write in English and these opportunities help me refine and develop my English language skills. But Tamil, I am all lost, I don’t know where to start, but I know I have to start. Hopefully in the coming days (years) I will try blogging in Tamil.