For most of us, learning grammar is an outright drag. So what if there was a book that made learning all of the dry rules of grammar exciting? That would be cool, wouldn’t it? Well, Modern Hindi Grammar doesn’t accomplish this task. True to form, Modern Hindi Grammar is as boring as the next grammar book. That’s not to say it doesn’t cover all of the necessary information – it does and does so well – but it’s just not fun.
The book reads like a college textbook of the worst kind, even using all of the typical academic lingo. If you’re not all that familiar with grammatical terms in English, then you’re really going to have a hard time deciphering the terms presented. Some of the word I had to look up before I even got beyond the table of contents included “Phonemes”, “Allophones”, “Morphophonemics”, and “Multiplicatives”. If you just want to learn how to speak Hindi while using proper grammar, then this book is probably a bit excessive. It’s not the type of book most people will prefer to use if studying Hindi is just a hobby for self satisfaction. If however, you aspire to be a Hindi scholar, then by all means, go right ahead and indulge yourself in “Anaphora”, “Dative Verbs”, “Degrees of Imperatives”, and so on.
"The book reads like a college textbook of the worst kind, even using all of the typical academic lingo. If you’re not all that familiar with grammatical terms in English, then you’re really going to have a hard time deciphering the terms presented."
If you are a Hindi teacher at the collegiate level, then you may be tempted to use this book. Yet, you should stop and consider the fact that the best way to get your students to learn is to make it fun! This book does nothing even close. In fact, it may make your students hate studying Hindi. There are many books out there that have grammar, vocabulary, and learning comprehension all in one. Ask yourself why it’s important that your students have one book that is solely focused on grammar and that too in the most painful way possible. Unless you feel that it is absolutely necessary to torture your students with the worst kind of grammar lessons, then I would suggest you try to stay away from using this book as a textbook.
It’s important to note that this book does a great job of presenting almost every aspect of Hindi grammar, which makes it an important (while still dry) tool. The book however, does not allow the student to put what they have learned into practice or even work on learning the grammar structures in a less passive form. Rather than studying the information in this textbook, you may want to keep it handy as a reference book which you can look at when grammatical questions arise. The authors have clearly put a lot of labour and love into thoroughly dissecting Hindi grammar, and for that the book does deserve a degree of respect. We just wish that next time they could find a way to present the same content in a more intriguing way.
