Hindi (हिन्दी)

[Merci Alizée]

A thread for Hindi! :D Well, I always wanted to create one for all of us, but I always in doubt whether anyone would be interested or not. Now since VVV asked me about this so I'm going to do it. This thread is basically for those who want to learn Hindi. Well, I'm not sure how exactly will I proceed with this, but I'll try.

<hr>
<hr>

To start with, just a brief introduction. Hindi is one of the official languages of India and mother tongue of over approx 600 million people. Hindi finds it's roots in the language Sanskrit. Sanskrit is much more pure and systematic. Hindi on the other hand has absorbed features of all languages and is very flexible. So, you can find words of English, French, Bengali, Russian in Hindi. One of the features of both Hindi and Sanskrit is that the reading and writing are highly associated with each other. There is only one way to read what you write and if you know how to read any alphabet, then you can read any sentence. It's unlike English you need to know pronunciation of each word separately.

Hindi is written in Devnagari Script. It has 10 vowels and 40 consonants and 2 modifiers. It is written from left to right.

<hr>
<hr>

Hindi - हिन्दी

Devanagari - देवनागरी

http://share.sayan.ee/files/hindi_trans.gif

That's the set of alphabets for Hindi.

[Människöpesten]

my mind just got blown.

[VVVACCPLPNLY]

Cool... Now to try to learn my third system of writing!
I totally failed at cyrillic (used for languages like Russian), but I excell at hangul. Hopefully I'll be able to memorise the shapes of the letters. That's what I struggle wth most with.

[Merci Alizée]

Here is a normal written form of alphabets (not by me)

http://www.indicaflow.ca/india/images/hindi_resize.jpg

Just to show how it can vary from the actual printed form. I won't call it a good handwriting though and the person made mistake with and second vowel. :p Second one was आ and not ओ

[severianb]

This is awesome. Thank you MA. You are a intellectual giant. I'm now going to go cry in a corner and think about how dumb I am.

[sumi1]

Try this site for learning the script and pronunciation.

http://www.avashy.com/hindiscripttutor.htm

[VVVACCPLPNLY]

Ok, here's another place I'm having trouble. With Korean as my third language (though, come this thursday, I will learn how to make superlatives, meaning I will officially know more Korean than French), I'm used to how it has a difference between the aspirated and non-aspirated p sounds, as well as k, t, ch. The similar consanant sounds b, g, d, and j, all have no aspirated form. These last five are very hard to aspirate. But they do have aspirated forms in Hindi. It is very hard for me to try to make the difference, without my mouth going into Korean mode and turning them into a p/k/t/ch, respectively. I hope that made sense. Wasabi might know what I mean, or anyone who has tried to learn hangul.
Basically, I can't make the aspirated g/b/d/j very easily. I might have found a language that will kick my butt finally.
Funnily enough, the restroflex consanants aren't to hard, they just slow me down a bit when I read romanised Hindi.
Also sumit, awesome site. Many thanks my friend!

[ed2010]

I just got a coupon for up to 150.00 off Rosetta Stone software
at Borders. So do I buy the French language packs? or Hindi?
( I cannot afford both )


Ah, to be a Cunning Linguist!

:rolleyes:

[Rev]

Glad you are doing this. :)

I have wanted to study Sanskrit for years, but have never had to opportunity. Also, it seemded too complicated, and the conjuncts are just too many to even begin to grasp. :(

[user472884]

So, when you write in Hindi do you draw the one horizontal line before writing the whole word, or do you write each individual character and connect the horizontal lines as you go?

[Merci Alizée]

So, when you write in Hindi do you draw the one horizontal line before writing the whole word, or do you write each individual character and connect the horizontal lines as you go?

Write all characters of a word and then connect them by a horizontal line. In a notebook that line coincides with upper line (in English, all words all words touch bottom line.

[sumi1]

So, when you write in Hindi do you draw the one horizontal line before writing the whole word, or do you write each individual character and connect the horizontal lines as you go?

No fixed rule on how you connect the lines. What is important is that the horizontal lines of all characters in a word are connected. If the lines are not connected, that indicates the beginning of an other d word.

It is however, easier to write all characters first and then draw a single continuous horizontal line to cover all the characters.

Here is an example:

http://img125.imagevenue.com/loc394/th_07574_2010_12_2023.52.59_122_394lo.jpg (http://img125.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=07574_2010_12_2023.52.59_122_394lo.j pg)

PS: Your first quiz in Hindi 101. Identify the word in above example :)

[Uméesha]

Wow, very Interesting thread. This thread will be very helpful for the people who are eager to learn Hindi language. This language is not so quite easy to learn but still understanding's makes them pro's.

Hindi Lang is all about joining the Horizontal Line to make a complete word :D

[user472884]

Oh, I see....

Kinda like how if I'm writing something with "tt", I'll draw one line through both of them at once after the fact...

[VVVACCPLPNLY]

The biggest problem for me so far is remembering cases, gender, and that stuff. And even though my first language is English, I'm very unused to languages with stressed syllables. It's some very complicated stuff.

[VVVACCPLPNLY]

Oh... Sumit the answer is Alizee. I'm still not sure how to pronounce letters for sure. My sources indicate that the basic vowel that is built into consonants, and you started her name off with, is prounounced like run. Meaning that would be pronounced 'uhleezay'. Sigh... Lonely Planet BLOWS...
I can't use that tutoring site right now either from here.

[Merci Alizée]

Oh... Sumit the answer is Alizee. I'm still not sure how to pronounce letters for sure. My sources indicate that the basic vowel that is built into consonants, and you started her name off with, is prounounced like run. Meaning that would be pronounced 'uhleezay'. Sigh... Lonely Planet BLOWS...
I can't use that tutoring site right now either from here.

Unfortunately I couldn't get much time on computer for last few weeks. Since I have 3 days off, so I can try to do more. :)

I think that spelling of Alizée written by Sumit is not correct. It should have been

अलिजे

and not अलीजे

The first one is Alize and second one is Aleeze.


<hr>
<hr>

Just for the reference of everyone :

In Hindi there were vowels, consonants and modifiers. You can see those here (http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showpost.php?p=193610&postcount=1).


अ - It is first vowel. It's pronunciation is same as of run or ugly.

आ - Same as a in car.

इ - Same as i in Alizé. It's short.

ई - Same as ea in clean. It's longer than i and more stressed.

उ - Same as u in Cuckoo, Just like i it's short and less stressed.

ऊ - Same as oo in Cuckoo. Longer and more stressed just like ee.

<hr>
<hr>

Then in every word, each consonant combines with vowels and/or other consonants. Consonants can't be without a vowel in a word. However vowels can be used alone in a word. You can see how the consonants are said. The image below gives an idea about that.

http://share.sayan.ee/files/hindi_trans.gif

The symbols which you see in the brackets are used when a consonant combines with a vowel.

For ex - let us understand the formation of the word Alizée.

First letter is A. It's sound matches with
अ

Then there is li. L is a consonant and it has a vowel i attached to it. The sound of l matches with ल (see the figure) and the symbol which is used when i combines with consonant makes it लि

After that we have zée, which is said like ze or je. For that sound consonant in Hindi is ज and for e the symbol given in figure is used with it to produce : जे

That's how we get अलिजे

[VVVACCPLPNLY]

MA I hate to be a pain, but I can't see devanagari, or any other Indo-aryan writing system, on these computers. In fact, the only languages these computers CAN display besides Latin-Greco-Cyrillic are Arabic and derivatives. And writing down the pronnciation of a letter doesn't really actually help much. I'd have to hear it. But thanks for trying, but I just can't learn it now, I'll hvae to wait til I have better resources.

[stevejackson]

nice thread!

i can be of use here, if any one is intrested in learning hindi i can help you,
but you also have to teach me another language apart from english.
:fight: we can help each other. (because without hearing its not easy to learn a language!)