LKG to Grade 5, with Grade 6 in production. Built on stroke-order research.
Computational thinking and AI for modern classrooms. Levels 1 to 9.
Available nowRecorded lectures, skill development courses and workshops.
Coming soonScan the QR on any lesson page and its digital content opens. Free with every book.
Level 0 to Level 13, six modules, 1.3 million activities.
Coding, computing activities and digital citizenship. Levels 1 to 9.
Coming soonOne year of unlimited Tamil for an individual learner, at their own pace.
The roll of honour: students, teachers and schools of the year.
Install Thambaa Tamil Labs on Windows or macOS.
Payil books and Thambaa Labs as one syllabus, for schools across India.
For Tamil Sangams, weekend schools and international schools abroad.
Level 13 in five streams, and a Centre of Excellence on your campus.
One year of Tamil for one learner, at their own pace, anywhere.
One partner per district in India, one per country internationally.
Thambaa Labs and Payil books, built on thirteen years of Tamil language research. Children stop reciting the language and start playing with it.
I used to visit schools and interact with the students in Tamil. But they mostly responded in English. When I wondered why, the students told me they were allowed to speak only English on campus.
Dr. Madhan Karky, Founder
For most students, Tamil class has meant dense textbooks, memorised answers and a quiet struggle to keep up. It is a language they hear all around them and still find hard to connect with academically. We thought the problem was not the children, and not the language. It was everything in between.
Payil is the printed curriculum. Thambaa is the digital lab it lives inside. Tamil is where we started, and computing is where we are going next.
A Tamil curriculum that begins with ட and ப, not அ and ஆ, because a child who can finish their first stroke will come back for the second. Songs, stories, games and QR-linked digital content in every lesson. Grade 6 in production.
See the Payil MethodComputational thinking and AI for modern classrooms. How computing is applied across different fields, the history of computing, real case studies, and gadgets both ancient and modern. Levels 10 to 12 in production.
See the booksSix modules and 1.3 million activities in one digital lab, from a foundation level through twelve school levels to a college level in five streams. Every learner tracked separately across ten verticals.
Tour the labsComputing activities, coding activities, books, podcasts and digital citizenship training, in the same lab children already know their way around.
Register interestEach one works on its own. Together they cover every way a child meets a language — reading it, playing with it, singing it, and practising it until it sticks.
A Tamil e-book library spanning STEM, arts, history and literature, graded to every reading level.
1,600+ exclusive books
Dictionaries, rhyme finders, typing tutors — the tools that make Tamil something a child can operate, not just recite.
17+ language tools
Language and logic games that test verbal, listening, comprehension, writing and observational skills without ever feeling like a test.
60+ games
Songs written by our own team, on everything from moral values to thermodynamics and photosynthesis. Hard ideas go down easier in a tune.
350+ songs
Micro courses on Tholkaappiyam, Thirukkural, grammar and creative writing, in pieces small enough to finish.
240+ learning videos
Adaptive trainers for writing, vocabulary, typing and listening, giving each child feedback in the moment they need it.
10+ training tools
Plus 120 audio books and 150 podcast episodes. These are library totals across all levels, not the content inside any single level.
We wanted a name that was playful and meaningful at once. It turned out to hold three ideas.
தம்பி — thambi, little brother. Someone a child is not afraid of.
தமிழ் பாடம் — Thamba, short for Tamil Paadam. The Tamil lesson.
தம் பா — split it, Tham-baa, and it means their own song.
Thambaa is also our mascot. Children pass levels to win sugarcane and balls, to feed him and play with him. As far as the teachers are concerned, they are learning Tamil grammar. As far as they are concerned, they are looking after an elephant.
Every book, tool and game rests on thirteen years of Tamil language research at the Karky Research Foundation. The fun is not decoration on top of the pedagogy. It is how the pedagogy is delivered.
Tamil teaching traditionally opens with அ and ஆ — curved characters of four to six strokes. Payil opens with ட and ப, at one or two. Children build motor coordination before they meet complexity, and succeed on day one.
The books and the labs are one syllabus, not two products. Teachers receive the answer key and the evaluation methodology alongside the textbook.
The platform notices the moment a child zones out, and adapts. Monthly reports show every learner against the world average across all ten verticals.
A child who reads beautifully but hesitates to speak looks nothing like one who does the opposite. We analyse each learner separately in every vertical, so each gets what they actually need.
This child is on the Listening Intensive stream, built for students taking Tamil as a third language. Reading and grammar are not part of their plan, so they are not measured on them.
A stream is set per child, not per class. One student in a room of forty can be on it, and their ten skills follow it. Nobody is scored on work they were never set.
Language carries our heritage, shapes our thoughts, bridges generations. Discovering Tamil through joy awakens cultural identity in tomorrow's storytellers.
Wherever we go, whatever we do, it is important to remember where we came from and what makes us uniquely us. Nurturing their roots in Tamil, the young sprouts will sure soar to the skies.
Principals, correspondents and chairmen of partner schools, in their own words.
Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tenkasi and beyond — and now two colleges, including our first engineering college.
Published with school permission and parental consent. See the full gallery.
Thambaa Indie opens the full platform to an individual learner for a year, at whatever pace suits them. A child after school, an adult at midnight, a grandparent on a Sunday morning.
One franchise partner per district in India and one per country internationally. You build the school relationships, we run the technology, and renewals earn you commission every year.
Every year we publish the roll of honour — the students, teachers and schools who lit the lamp of Tamil learning highest.
Tell us about your school and we will show you what a Thambaa lab session looks like.