Learn Sinhala: Sample Lesson
This sample lesson can help you to find your way through our Sinhala lesson pages with greater ease.
By clicking on any of the buttons on this page with the icon on it, you will be able to hear that particular portion of the lesson.
More in Lessons
An introduction to our Sinhala language lessons.
>> Lessons MapA seperate 'Site Map' to our Sinhala lessons.
Each lesson section will have an initial section explaining/outlining what the lesson is, followed by the lesson itself.
Don't worry if you don't understand or even recognise what the letters, words or phrases are; you don't even need to recognise what the sounds are to begin with since this section of the lessons is there mainly for you to listen to and learn the sounds of sinhala.
Recognition will come later as you grow more experienced in speaking and writing Sinhala.
Ahanna
This section, 'Ahanna' (අහන්න) deals primarily with the sounds of Sinhala. Each of the Ahanna lesson sections will contain a number of letters, words or phrases which need to be listened to, hence the name 'Ahanna' for this section since it means, 'Listen'.
Below is a small sampling of what an 'Ahanna section will look like. To begin, you just need to move your mouse over any of the letters and click.
You will then be able to hear what is being said. It should be noted here that since this section is all about listening, you will need either a pair of headphones, or your speakers plugged into your computer before you can proceed any further.
You will first hear the name of the letter being spoken, then you will hear the actual sound of the letter. This will be followed by a pause for you to repeat the sound you have just heard.
To make it easier for you to learn you will need to repeat the sound out loud. This is so that your tongue will get used to the pronunciation.
When you have repeated the sound, you will find that the sound is once again repeated by us so that you can hear what it again.
Listen to the sound of each letter as many times as you like so that you become familiar with it.
Liyanna
In this section you will learn to write in Sinhala, starting from the very basics.
Through a series of lessons on writing you will learn how to first write the Sinhala Hodiya (සිංහල හෝඩිය) (the Sinhala Alphabet) in an easy manner, before moving on to individual words, then sentences etc.
Click on the play button on the video screen to immediately start learning how to write Sinhala.
Kiyanna
The idea behind this section is the same as in the section 'Ahanna'. The only difference here being that instead of hearing the sounds that the letters make, you will be hearing the sounds of certain words.
Click on each word to hear what it sounds like. The word will first be spoken at a normal speed, then repeated again more slowly so that you can hear the seperate sounds of the word.
Repeat these out loud to get a better feel for what each word feels like on your tongue, then listen once again as the word is repeated by us so that you can hear it again, this time with more familiarity of the word in your mind.