Taking A Dive

     Let's take a dive into my language of Malayalam. I had used a resource of Youtube and found a video of an American woamn who was able to fluently speak in Malayalam. I suddenly was boosted with motivation. I then tried to use context clues to figure out her message. After little progress and an hour passed by, I took the video to my parents. After they filled me in, I took her advice to respect and appriciate my culture and heritage.  After replaying the woman's video multiple times, I tried to speak with her and see if I was able to keep up with her. Although it took several attempts, I got the gist of it. American woman speaking Malayalam link
    After listening to the video and my parents, I am beginning to pick up on some patterns based on past, present, or future tenses. ഞാന്‍ നിന്നെ പ്രേമിക്കുന്നു (njan ninne premikkunnu) is "I love you." The "-ikkunnu" is a present tense verb. Now if I were to say a verb for present tense, all I would have to do is add "-ikkunnu". I told my mom this phrase and she was astonished of how quickly I was able to acquire the accent. Although she said it was fine, I believe there is still much room for improvement.  After about 15 minutes of constant practice, by repetition, I went back to my mom and she said I sounded much better and that I spoke the phrase quite fluently.
    Time to take a look in my cultural food. I know for sure we are the post popular country for our famous spices and curries. This must be the reason for my strong desire for spicy food! After asking my mom to create some chicken curry, my mouth began to bubble with various flavors and textures. It was honestly amazing. After seeing how wonderful the curry was, I began to wonder how I could miss out on these cultural experiences. This boosted my motivation and now I was even more determined to learn as much as possible about my heritage. Stay close, as we continue to venture into the unknown.