Where to stay in a rural area and practice Hindi?

NonIndianResident

I did a month of Hindi lessons at Landaur a few years ago, which was useful, but Mussourie otherwise is not a great place to practice Hindi, and neither is the place I live. Now I'm thinking maybe I should plan to go and spend a few weeks in some small town or village where Hindi would be necessary and just arrange daily practice hours with some locals, maybe a retired teacher or someone like that.

Does anyone know a pleasant and friendly rural or small-town place where reasonably standard Hindi is spoken? My natural inclination is to prefer hills and rural areas, even if a bit hard to reach, but perhaps the hills are not home to standard Hindi? I'm not looking to learn flowery, Sankritised or academic Hindi, I'd just like to be able to communicate better, and though I know another Indian language well, I've just never really mastered the national language.

capt_mahajan

Thing is, people in small places may speak in dialects/Hindustani or Hindi/Urdu mixed, depending where. And you may well find 'Pahari' being spoken in some hill areas.

Reasonably standard Hindi? I would look for a town in Uttar Pradesh. Maybe bigger than you are looking for presently- I would have thought Mussoorie (not Landour) would give you enough opportunity to practice, but if it is unsatisfactory....

Almora springs to mind too. Maybe just outside the town.

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holikarang

I don't think it's much about the place, my best opportunity is with elderly traditional people, when they see I can speak Hindi they are the first ones to be relieved to avoid English! If you live for a while in a family were most members don't speak Hindi, some place in UP, then you can practice enough I guess. If you have a decent knowledge of grammar, unless the teacher is exceptional, I don't think you need one in that case and if you really want to get one insist on what you really want to learn. If after 2/3 lessons they don't get it, it might be the wrong teacher for you.

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holikarang

edwardseco

Too rural and it will grow long as an experience very fast..

delhiwala

Why not at Dehradun !

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NonIndianResident

Thanks for your recommendations! It sounds like UP is the consensus.

The reason Mussoorie wasn't ideal was that all the shopkeepers spoke perfectly good English and I wasn't staying in a homestay.

namaste_cat

Dehradun is a good option. If you want a smaller hill station, either Chakrata or Dhanaulti in Uttarakhand are lovely. High literacy rates, lots of Hindi speakers, beautiful lovely unspoiled vistas (the former even has an Eco Park). Just lovely!

My kids loved practising their Hindi there (and by that I mean proper conversational Hindi, not Hinglish and other bastardizations one encounters way too much elsewhere). Also in Haridwar. Not so much Rishikesh.

Enjoy!

holikarang

Nice to know namaste_cat, I believe staying with a local family is the best option to learn. When I arrived in India the first time I already knew Hindi but didn't dare using it as I was scared I could not understand,then I spent some time with a friend of mine who couldn't speak English at all (we were Italian) and she was staying with a family who only spoke Hindi to her and that's where I started insisting with people to use Hindi with me.

A good thing is to say that you are not an English speaker and you cannot understand English, at least with shop keepers...

holikarang

sorry...this is a mistake... moderators, can you please delete this post?

edwardseco

I'll strongly second Holi's statements..