But Ananya had a problem. English letters felt like wild birds—she could see them, but they wouldn’t sit still. ‘b’ and ‘d’ kept swapping places. ‘p’ and ‘q’ played tricks on her. Her classmates laughed when she read “school” as “s-ch-oo-ol.”

Language learners, have you encountered a script that uses vowel markers like this before? Let us know in the comments!

When you learn a new language, don’t erase your mother tongue—let it hold your hand.

The consonant 'ಕ' (Ka) acts as the base. To change the vowel sound, you simply add a specific "matra" (stroke) to the base! • ಕ (Ka) + ಅ = ಕ (Ka) • ಕ (Ka) + ಇ = ಕಿ (Ki) • ಕ (Ka) + ಉ = ಕು (Ku)

In a tiny hilltop village in Karnataka, there lived a curious 10-year-old named Ananya. She loved two things: her grandmother’s kannada kathalu (stories) and the strange, squiggly English words on her uncle’s old laptop.