Food and drink
These are the words you hear at a Tamil meal: the food on the plate, the drinks in the cup, and the two verbs you need most, to eat and to drink. The set starts with the general words for food, then water, milk and tea, then rice and what goes with it, and ends with a few dishes many families cook at home. Food comes up often when you visit family, so these words get used a lot. A tip for remembering them: at your next meal, name each thing on your plate in Tamil before you eat it, and say the verb as you take the first bite.
The everyday word for a meal.
Rice once it is cooked.
Rice before it is cooked.