advice on learning hindi

steven_ber

i am looking for advice on learning hindi,

anyone know of:-

good websites,

cd-rom,

books,

tapes,

or any other general advice.

thanks.

Pete

I have found one website that lists teach-yourself books and I think they also mention a web-based language course as well. It's languageadvantage.com/languagelist/hindi.

I haven't ordered anything from it myself as I'm a bit paranoid about buying things off the internet. I'm waiting for the new edition of a teach-yourself book/CD set to arrive at the bookstore. I can't remember the name off hand, but it teachs you the written language as well. The only other option I have here is distance education from a university - which is a very expensive option, I can't find any community colleges that teach Hindi. Maybe if you contact a university that does teach Hindi they could put you in contact with someone who gives lessons or knows of other options.

Good luck with your search

vistet

Try this Hindi Resource page

sknair

Here is a page that has a few good links in it http://www.languageadvantage.com/languagelist/hindi.htm

and another one
http://lrrc3.plc.upenn.edu/hindi/

absolut

as dictionary I advice you to buy the Mc Gregor Hindi-English dictionary. The indian Bhargavas Dictionary is also good but is more useful if you are into studying hindi literature.
A good grammar with exercises is also written by Mc Gregor : Outline of a Hindi grammar.
Personally I would advise you to go through a good hindi grammar with exercises like the one written by Mc Gregor, to build a good basic of hindi grammar and then to increase your knowledge by speaking to native hindi speakers.
on of the problems of studying hindi is that there is a large difference between the spoken and the written hindi, so you definitely need to find a solution to be able practice (speak) a lot.

indiamike

Nothing can beat a good tutor, a person to just sit down with and go back and forth with on different phrases and words.

It's extremely difficult to learn another language on your own (don't I know it).

I am not sure about your area in England Steven, but where I live there are plenty of people who speak Hindi (sometimes it seems like a constant revolving door of young girls from Baroda), a suggestion would be to ask someone local, like in a shop if they would be willing to sit down with you once a week and teach you some basic phrases. Offer them a few pounds a lesson, odds are good that there is always someone willing to make a little extra cash and tutoring is an easy way to do this.

(finding a nice girl who is cute to teach you doesn't hurt either )

Mike

picklepak

Here in Canada I've met several very pretty Canadian girls of Indian descent who absolutely claim that they learned Hindi from watching Hindi movies at home, ones with subtitles. Sounds like a great plan, doesn't it? So I picked up five Hindi movies from my sister-in-law's house recently but only one of them had subtitles. But I'm watching them anyway. Ah, it's a good way to start and it makes the learning process more enjoyable nonetheless. I learn foreign languages very slow so I really asked them if they were serious... they all grew up learning English only.

As for me, I can still only bargain with an autorickshaw wallah in Hindi, seeing as I know my numbers, and a few other basic phrases that make me feel marginally smart but I bet just make me sound like an idiot. It's worth a shot.

If find anything online or similarly easy ways to do it, post the info here!

absolut

I think Mikes advice of sitting with somebody in a shop, which shouldn't be a problem in England, is a good advice. Only the grammatical base you will most probably have to learn from a book. The way of teaching languages in India is quite different from the one we are used to in the western world. While here language teaching is very much focused on teaching grammar rules, in India a language is mainly thaught by reading and reading texts without bothering much abt the grammatical explanations. So Indians will many times not be able to answers your questions abt grammar, unless they themselves are quite higly educated.

washingline

It's hard to get fluent. I learnt because, as you know, I'm trying to live in India long term, i.e. until I die naturally. But it's hard for two main reasons.

A -- The sounds in Hindi aren't exactly the same as the sounds in English. So, there's a special way to transliterate into English to make sure you're pronouncing everything properly. What that means in practice is that if you buy a phrasebook or learn Hindi course, the phrases that you read in English won't be phonetic, they will be pronounced a different way to the English spelling.

B -- It takes ages until you can have a conversation, and so you lose your momentum. It seems to be practice, practice, practice -- and never get to speak to anyone.

But there's a way around this. Of course, the easiest way to learn a language is to fall in love with and move in with someone who only speaks that language. You'll be fluent in a month.

If not, then I started with the Hugo book, Hindi in Three Months. This book doesn't teach you to read and write. It consists of the kind of Hindi that Hindi speakers actually use, and it completely focuses on you speaking as fast as possible. The best thing is that it doesn't stick to the official transliteration where it isn't phonetic, but often gives the nearest rhyming word in English.

For example, the informal way to request someone to give you something is "dena". The Hugo book mentions that it rhymes with Gaynor, as in Gloria Gaynor, the singer. Yes, a stupid way to explain it, then again, you can pronounce stuff straight away without having to refer to a pronounciation key. It explains things like, "dost" meaning "friend" rhymes with toast, "Kailor" meaning "Banana" rhymes with "sailer", and such similar. Look it's great, already you can speak some Hindi. If you remember "mere" means "me" and "aap" means "you", now you can go up to random Indians in the street and say "I'm your banana friend". Just think of how many days you can brighten, and the exciting new experiences you will invite into your life.

Joking apart. Have a go with the Hugo book. Once you learn a little bit, start speaking it. There are different ways to speak Hindi. Some speakers use a very formal type close to Sanskrit, but other people liberally sprinkle English sentences in, commonly known as "Hinglish". If you do this you're speaking the language, or a form of it, much more quickly, and it motivates you more.

Of course, I finished that book and want to go to full fluency, so now I have the Longman teach yourself book, I do about an hour a day and am reading straight from Hindi. This is much more work, but I'm thinking if my reading gets to the stage where I can learn as I go along from newspapers and books, I'll be well on the way.

I ?think? the Hugo book is by Mark Tulley, or something similar.

The way not to do it: I met a young man in China years ago. He had come in from Russia, fell in love with it, knew he wanted to go back for a long-term trip, so decided to learn Russian, from a Russian-English dictionary. We sat in a bar near Shanghai towers one night and he gave us a demonstration of his spoken Russian, about thirty words, each one beginning with the letter "a".

steven_ber

thanks everyone, great replies.

i was passing the libruary so went in and had a look, left with a free membership of the libruary, and a free 3 week rental of the 'hugo, hindi in 3 months' language cource (book and 2 cassettes), now i need a cassette walkman, i remember them from my childhood days.

this language cource and the advice and websites i received in these replies should definatly help.

any good info or sites i find that have not already been mentioned i will post.

unfortunatly, all the asians that live in my area are from north eastern bangladesh and speak silhetti, looks like i will have to plan another 'exotic weekend' for 2 months time to find out how the new lingo is coming along.

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prince_anurag

Yes! Of course! You can learn Hindi very easily. It is one of the ancient languages of the world, which was derived from the ancient language Sanskrit (All Hindu religion books are written in this language.

Knowing Hindi will open doors for anyone to understand India in a better manner and feel its eternal beauty by the depth of hearts.

Start learning Hindi from here:

http://www.eternalglories.com/faq/hindiwords.htm

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Most useful Travel tips (including Dos & Dont's) for travelling in India-

http://eternalglories.com/traveltips.htm

steven_ber

is urdu very similar to hindi, if you can speak some urdu, does it make speaking hindi easier.

vistet

My impression is that the difference (except the alphabets) is mainly a (political) construct, compare with the two "new" languages serbian and croatian. This may be sloppy thinking on my part.However , I checked a few words and they all seemed identical or very close. The numerals are the same in Hindi, Urdu & Persian ( Indian mathematics introduced the zero concept the way I remember it).

Don`t take my word for it : check the dictionary

vistet

This is would be the same level as my knowledge of Spanish ; I can say a few common sentences like "there are no cows on the ice" " I am a suitcase" etc.

Seriously, I think there is a updated Penguin version of The Hugo Book ( author Mark Allerton, does it sound right ? ) with tapes :

Hindi in three months. Mark Allerton

Series: Hugo's simplified system

Subject: Hindi language. Study and teaching

Publication details: London. Hugo's Language Books. 1997

Description: 144p. ill. 22 cm. pbk

ISBN: 0852852975. m

ISBN: 0852852983. v. Book with audio cassettes

( from British Library Catalogue)


Oops, I just saw you already found the book...never mind , I´ll let it be...
btw , anyone know a simple way of transfering cassetes like theseto a CD burner ?

indiamike

Switching topics here...I just use the old tried and true method of getting a jack with two male ends (make sure it's stereo) and plug one end into the output of my cassette player (headphone jack works ok also) and plug the second end into the line-in on my computer, in my case I use the microphone slot to plug into to. I then use a wav editor that saves to MP3 like (Goldwave), adjust the recording volume, press play on the cassette and record in the wav editor and just walk away.

Save it to Mp3 and just burn away. Not the quickest way, but it works.