In preparation to my forthcoming visit to India that takes place in a few weeks I would like to teach myself some Hindi. I like to say a few words in the local language when I travel so that people appreciate the fact that I am trying to speak like them. What is the best way to learn Hindi?
Although you can learn from books or the Internet (which offer you free resources, by the way), there's really no huge need to learn Hindi when you're in India because a great number of Indians do speak English - unless you go to the province or mountainous regions. Just the basic will do.
I am trying to learn Hindi through a freelancer who is teaching me some over Skype. I found him on one of the freelancing job sites and he is charging me a very economical fee for teaching me Hindi for an hour every day until I am able to converse in the language.
It is truly worth appreciating that you are interested in learning a language of our country. I recommend that if you concentrate on the pronunciation of the language from movies and videos you should be good. It won't be that difficult to get in and around India if you know English. If you are going too remote you might need regional languages. Remember that Hindi is not spoken everywhere and there are lots of different languages that are spoken here in India. Plan wisely and Happy Journey.
Following are some words can useful mostly in North of India,as in south there are different languages spoken but most of the people who knows Hindi can understand even in south but very few people,whereas almost everyone in north India. Namaste= A form of greeting just like hello & goodbye. Dhanywad or Shukriya = Thank you,Dhanywad is typical Hindi,(Sanskrit origin), language,Shukriya is Urdu,(Like Shukran in Arabic). Phir milenge = See you later Aap kaise hain? = How are you? Yeh kitne ka hai? = How much it costs? Iska kitna keemat/daam hai = How much is it?. Regards Nayak
You already got some great advice and tips, and that nice list of basic phrases above. The only thing I can add is that you may find it easier if you hear the phrases.spoken aloud. I am sure there are free or cheap low cost Internet language learning sites where you can listen to the pronunciation of key words.
For street Hindi, it's going to come naturally for you. The Indians are so friendly that they're going to be delighted to teach you a few words here and there. The first two words that are good to know before you arrive would be Namaste which is basically Hello and Tikey which means Okay. These two would work like a charm for a start
I was learning Japanese through a website called LiveMocha a few years ago - it was fun because you could actually connect through the site with native speakers of the language, and they would help you with your pronunciation and things like that. I hope that site still exists! I've also had some luck with other languages using Rosetta Stone CD's - but I guess it depends on your learning style as to whether or not you'll find them helpful!
I would download a simple phrasebook. But since you will find plenty of English speakers among the locals, an excellent way to learn is to ask them for a few words. You will find they are happy to share, and pleased you show an interest.
Recently I was doing a transcription of a interview about some Indian indie writers. Anyway, I learned that there are over 35 different languages there and that many people, for that reason, speak English and use it in everyday situations. If you want to learn few words to improve your knowledge of culture and to find out how rich is Hindi, you should but it is probable that you will use English most of the time there.
I also would like to learn Hindi! My friend tells me I should start with lots of Hindi - English books. That should give me basic understanding of Hindi words. Then, I should slowly start watching Hindi movies. I'm going to try this since I think it's a good advice.
If you're serious about learning Hindi, a simple phrasebook isn't going to cut it. Committing a few phrases to your short term memory only gets you so far. There are plenty of cheap or free resources on-line for learning languages, you should definitely considered spending much more time mastering the language. You'll be happy you did in the long run.
