Hindi Diwas 2023: Here’s how you can quickly pick up the language
On the occasion of Hindi Diwas, The Federal brings you a few tips and tricks to learn to speak Hindi in a fast and effective way
Despite its fair share of controversies, Hindi remains the fourth-most spoken language in the world. It is the official language in nine Indian states and three Union territories, and is also widely spoken in countries like Nepal, Fiji, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Like any other language, Hindi too may sound daunting to the non-Hindi speaker and definitely cannot be mastered overnight. But it doesn’t mean you can’t pick up a few words, phrases and sentences as you go and use them as your foundation to better your Hindi language skills. On the occasion of Hindi Diwas, The Federal brings you a few tips and tricks to learn to speak Hindi in a fast and effective way:
Homework first
Before jumping onto the Hindi-learning bandwagon, it is necessary to do a bit of homework first.
You could start by learning the Hindi or the Devanagari alphabet, understand the sounds and try practising them.
As and when you progress in your language-learning journey, you could pick up lessons on vowels, consonants, nouns, pronouns and verbs and try your hands at writing a few Hindi words too.
Use Hindi learning apps
Apps offering courses in Hindi are one of the most-sought platforms to learn basic communication skills. Many of these apps feature conversation between native speakers, have spaced repetition to help learners remember new vocabulary in an effective way, have a cache of popular vocabulary and animation and audio for words, and encourage learners to write and speak through exercises and fun games.
Some apps like italki come with the option of choosing your own native Hindi teacher and customise your learning as per your requirement.
There are free apps like Duolingo and Hindi by Nemo which provide comprehensive Hindi courses and focus on honing your writing, reading, listening and speaking skills by providing you content from everyday situations.
Apps like Rocket languages, Mondly, italki, Pimsleur, Drops, Memrise, Clozemaster, and Rosetta Stone are paid, but some of them offer a week or hour-based trial period. The monthly fee of courses offered by these apps range from ₹700-₹1,000.
Get mentored by YouTubers
There are competent YouTubers who are teaching Hindi to aspirants for free on the platform. These channels, often handled by teachers and Hindi language enthusiasts, tailor interesting episodes to help you grasp Hindi grammar, pick up colloquial words and learn how to converse with native speakers. Many of these channels incorporate animation and cartoons to engage learners and offer worksheets, quizzes and assignments to help you evaluate yourself.
A few channels are just focused on one particular aspect to help you master the language on that front. ‘Watch and Learn Hindi’, for instance, helps you correctly pronounce Hindi words.
And the best part of it is that all of the resources are free.
Here’s a list of the most-popular YouTube channels:
HindiPod101.com
ZedxHindi
Anil Mahato
Hindi TV
Watch and Learn Hindi
Hindi University
Organisations like Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha offer also online preliminary and advanced courses in Hindi at a reasonable rate. These courses last for at least three months.
Take help of books
Books do come in quite handy when you have got a hang of the language, and want to delve further into phrases, colloquial words and grammar.
Here are a few you can choose from:
Master the Hindi Alphabet: A Handwriting Practise Workbook
Hindi: A Complete Course for Beginners by Living Language
Learn Hindi in 30 Days
Practice Makes Perfect: Basic Hindi
Learn Hindi in 30 Days Through English
Colloquial Hindi
Say it in Hindi
Teach Yourself Hindi
Read, watch, listen, speak - and repeat
For the above lessons on Apps, YouTube or books to work, it is imperative that you keep listening to and speaking Hindi.
Watching programmes in Hindi, be it a film, a serial or a web series, is a very effective way to learn new words and pronunciation, understand the grammar and syntax and get a clarity on the gendered nouns (yes Hindi has masculine-feminine noun classification like Romance languages!).
Listen to Hindi songs and podcasts while doing your daily chores to expand your vocabulary further.
You could also switch on a Hindi news channel and try to read out aloud the words flashing on the scrollbar.
Read Hindi magazines, books, and news articles to hone your reading skills. Take it slow. Look up tricky words in a Hindi-to-English dictionary and note them down for future use.
Listening will translate to speaking only when you try to mouth some Hindi words, phrases and sentences yourself. For starters, try enunciating certain words that you have learnt from your lessons. You could also make a list of sentences or phrases that would help you communicate with locals – say the grocer or the friendly neighbour – and learn more during your interaction with them.
An immersion language programme, which would help (or in a way force) you learn the language through interaction with Hindi speakers, is a tried-and-tested way of learning the language fast.
