Hindi may be the fifth most spoken language in the world, but that doesn’t mean it’s a popular language to learn. While many people study Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, French or Russian, it seems the number of people studying Hindi as a second or third language is very small. One could argue this is because the business class of India has been educated in English, thus learning the language for the purpose of trade, international diplomacy and the likes is unnecessary. Or perhaps it’s because the number of international tourists visiting India every year is less than 9% of those who visit France, and less than 12% of the number who visit China.
"If you want to get a thorough understanding of everything from writing in Devanagari to properly pronouncing your “ka” and “kha” while still learning proper grammar, then this book and audio set can help."
Whatever the reason, Hindi is a language that doesn’t seem to be studied as a second or third language very frequently. As a result, there are a lot fewer resources to choose from to help you learn if you do happen to want to learn how to speak Hindi. So how do you get beyond phrasebook Hindi? Hindi: A Complete Course for Beginners truly does live up to its name. If you want to get a thorough understanding of everything from writing in Devanagari to properly pronouncing your “ka” and “kha” while still learning proper grammar, then this book and audio set can help.
The first few pages of the book help the student get comfortable writing in Devanagari. By outlining how to draw each letter step by step, the student can learn to write Devanagari like a pro. It’s important for a serious student of Hindi to learn how to read Devanagari and practice it throughout, rather than simply relying on the Romanization of the words. One may not, however, avoid coming across Romanization of Hindi words in today’s modern world. Hindi Romanization often appears in advertisements, social media and chat. Thus, readers should be comfortable with using both. The book even adds interesting cultural notes that can help students get a basic understanding of Indian culture. This added element can make learning Hindi all the more exciting because it contextualizes the learning experience.
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The book covers all of the essential conversation topics that a beginner language book should. The book starts with the regular introductions and family talk before it progresses to topics such as taking a trip to Nepal and office conversation. Throughout every section, the book helps the learner with things such as tense, gender, and vocabulary building.
While the set is $10-20 more than a lot of basic books, never underestimate the power of audio. Complete with six audio CDs, Hindi: A Complete Course for Beginners will give you the listening practice that you need in order to fully put into practice the bookwork that you’ve learned. Many other language learning kits offer only one or two CDs for a much higher price. Thus, I think Hindi: A Complete Course for Beginners is quite a steal. With the CDs you almost don’t even need a teacher.
If you are a Hindi teacher, this set can still be quite useful for your classroom. You can have your student(s) listen to the audio at home and then again in class. You can also have a lot of fun with the extensive vocabulary lists. There are fill-in-the-blank exercises you that students can do at home or in the classroom, but as with any book, you can supplement your students learning by adding your own related exercises.
