We have used a couple of dictionaries, and are still on the search for more. Each has pros and cons as discussed below.

Tamil Dictionary & Phrasebook

Clement J. Victor

This book includes cultural information about places that speak Tamil, Tamil-English and English-Tamil dictionary sections, and a large reference section for common phrases. The Tamil-English and English-Tamil sections are useful for people who don’t know any of the Tamil letters, because they both use Roman transcriptions of Tamil. This does create some problems though, because the way they spell Tamil letters in Roman letters varies from book to book. The Tamil vowels, for example, are transcribed very differently in this book than in the Learn Tamil in 30 Days book seen here . It is very nice to be able to look up words through English though, and almost every word we’ve attempted to look up has been in this book.

The best part of this resource might be the phrasebook section. It is very comprehensive and thorough. They begin with introductions, basic phrases and greetings and then list vocab and phrases for many different scenarios like travel, shopping, and sightseeing. Finally, they have great reference sheets for numbers, colors, and money information.


English-English Tamil Dictionary Super

R. Venkatasubbhu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This book was purchased in India, and we can’t find a link to it online. This book is technically for Tamil speaking people who are learning English because you look up the word in English and the pronunciation is given in Tamil, followed by the definition in English, and the word in Tamil. We included the picture to show you how this works.

This book is helpful in practicing the Tamil alphabet and does include many words. One drawback is that many of the simple words we have looked up like fly, my, wear, and others have not been listed.

Milet Mini Picture Dictionary English-Tamil

Sedat Turhan & Sally Hagin

This is a picture dictionary for kids, but it is very useful for learning basic words. They are written in both English and Tamil, as seen below.

This book is fun and helpful in learning the Tamil alphabet. Words include clothes, body parts, food, animals, colors, numbers and a few more.