Namastē! Living Language’s Hindi online course is coming soon. Check back next Friday for the full course, or try out some sample flashcards and games right now at our Language Lab. At the end of the course, you’ll be able to speak, understand, read and write in Hindi.
Some fast facts about Hindi:
- Hindi is the most widely spoken language in India and the primary tongue of 41 percent of its 1.2 billion people.
- It is one of two official languages of India – English is the second.
- It is estimated that between 380 million and almost 500 million individuals speak Hindi worldwide.
- India is home to more than 1,500 languages, many of which are mutually intelligible with Hindi.
But learning a language is about more than a new alphabet and sentence structure: It offers a gateway into a rich culture. And increased immersion will only strengthen your Hindi skills.
Here are our five tips for incorporating Hindi into your everyday life:
1. Swap out Beyoncé for A.R. Rahman on your commute or at the gym.
There’s a reason why you can still sing along to throwbacks on the radio: Tunes help lyrics stick in your mind longer than vocabulary from flashcards. Remember “Jai Ho” of Slumdog Millionaire fame? A.R. Rahman’s catchy Hindi lyrics will help you absorb pronunciation and sentence structure patterns. Plus, the Bollywood beats will perk you up before work and push you through that last mile on the treadmill.
Spotify has ample Hindi music offerings. Some recommendations: “Roobaroo” and “Dil Se Re.”
2. Learn a new word each day.
Make it a goal to learn one new Hindi word every day – aim for a noun. If you’re salting a plate of breakfast potatoes at your local diner, look up the Hindi word for salt (namak). Is your dinner date picking you up in a new car (gāḍī). Maybe you’ll need to look up the rāstā (path/route) to get to the restaurant.
3. Eat!
Food offers insights into traditions and culture. And you’re more likely to remember the words dāl and rōṭī if you go through the process of making spiced lentils and rolling out the flatbread. Check out AartiPaarti.com, run by a Food Network star, and IndianasApplePie.com for recipes.
4. Read an English book set in India.
You’ll gain a deeper sense of the cultural and historical factors at play in the language through narratives that take place in Hindi’s motherland, like the British independence and partition tale Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, or Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram, which chronicles the Mumbai escapades of a convicted bank robber who fled Australia.
5. Watch Bollywood movies.
You can find plenty of Bollywood movies on YouTube, iTunes and Netflix, ranging from classics to hits from the 1990s and new releases. Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, which translates to “sometimes happiness, sometimes sadness,” is an iconic Bollywood drama released in 2001. It’s also three and a half hours long. Watch 20 minutes every night for your daily dose of Hindi. Modern films like this intersperse English, so try to wean yourself off subtitles and learn from context clues.
