English to Kannada Typing

Kannada stacks consonant clusters vertically: the second consonant hangs below the first as an ottakshara. It is the part of writing Kannada that is hardest to reproduce on a keyboard, and the part most people give up on.

Here you type the letters in order and the stacking happens. Type kannada and you get ಕನ್ನಡ, doubled n rendered as a subscript. Type namaskara and you get ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ. There is no separate key or mode for it.

Worth contrasting with dictation: on the Kannada voice typing page the recogniser has to infer the ottakshara from a word it thinks it heard, and that inference is where its errors land. Typing gives you the cluster you actually asked for.

ಎ against ಏ, and ಒ against ಓ, are separate vowels that change meaning. Roman spelling records that distinction only if you write it, so ee and oo are the habit worth forming.

The same goes for aa. It is the most common single cause of a word coming out nearly right.

Common words are handled as exact entries; everything else is converted by rule. That means greetings and everyday vocabulary are reliable, and unusual names or technical terms are approximations you may want to check.

One letter to know about: ಳ is not produced by the rules at all — haLLi gives ಹಲ್ಲಿ with an ordinary ಲ. It is in the consonant row of the Kannada keyboard, so type the word and tap the letter. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.