About Learn Tamil

Hi, I'm Rathes Sachchithananthan, and I built Learn Tamil. I'm a second-generation diaspora Tamil: my parents came to Germany as refugees from the north of Sri Lanka. I grew up with Tamil as my first language, with German and English following soon after. Today I'm a software engineer based in Germany.

Why I built this

Tamil is one of the world's oldest living languages, but for many of us in the diaspora it slowly slips away — spoken less each generation, and increasingly muddled by English and other native languages. I care deeply about this language and want to help protect it from disappearing.

Learn Tamil is my attempt to give diaspora learners a structured, approachable way back to the language they grew up hearing — a clear path from the script to reading real sentences, built around free tools and guides to get you started.

Why you can trust the grammar

I didn't pick Tamil up casually. I learned it first from my parents, then spent twelve years at Tamil school on weekends — studying not only grammar, but also Tamil literature and the history of Sri Lanka. I read, write, and speak Tamil fluently.

Because I enjoy learning new languages — I speak three fluently and three more at a basic level — I'm used to looking at grammar analytically and connecting Tamil's rules to languages you might already know. That's the perspective I try to bring to every chapter here: accurate to how Tamil actually works, and explained in a way a diaspora learner can follow.

You can find more about me at rathes.me, or say hello on Instagram, Bluesky, and Threads.