The White Hindu has moved

The White Hindu has moved! This blog is no longer updated, but Ambaa is still writing The White Hindu every weekday at Patheos.com.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Another Hindi Update

I had made it my New Year's Resolution to be fluent in Hindi this year. January is coming up soon and I'm not there yet.

It's easy for me to feel discouraged and crushed by the weight of how much I have left to learn, but when I think about how far I've come, I've been doing pretty good!

I started learning Hindi a year and a half ago, in the summer.

I can now:

-read the script extremely well
-follow the basic context of cartoons
-understand most of the words in Bollywood songs (though not always how to put them together)
-say basic conversational things

Things I need work on:
-genders. I have a lot of trouble with putting the correct gender endings on things or knowing which word creates the gender of the sentence (i.e., which word to use to determine mera v.s. meri)
-complex sentences. I'm starting to see how these work, but am not able to generate them yet

Last night I was at my Hindi class and feeling frustrated with myself when I realized that even though I'm struggling with the oblique case and when to use it, just a couple of months ago I didn't understand what the oblique case was!

I have new motivation and a test for my skills possibly coming up. My parents are talking about maybe making another trip to India early next year. Last time they went, I had to work. This time, nothing is going to stop me from going!

13 comments:

  1. Amba do you get Indian T.V. channels? Watching them would help you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Aamba,

    It's been a while. I was reading a new blog that I came across yesterday by Aman. She wrote a post about how she struggles with genders and then she finally was able to get a break through in her learning. The excerpt that helped her is from the Rupert Snell books(can't remember if you have those or not)

    If you are interested ....

    http://pyaribuaari.com/2010/10/23/hindi-breakthrough-explained/

    Kat

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just found that blog too, Kat! I do have Snell's books and I love them. :)

    Ela, I do watch Indian TV. A friend sent me a link to watch over the Internet and I've been watching the soap opera Voh Rehne Waali Melon Ki and understanding very little of it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Amb you watch that 1000 years old soap. You are watching sahara channel. Wish yu watched sony and zee and news channel.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lol! It was the one that I happened to run across, knowing nothing about what's good.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think it might help you-www.sanskar tv.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. I have managed to learn Hindi/Urdu and have spoken it for many years, but my genders are still messed up. I think that is very hard to get right unless you learned the language as a child. Good luck with your quest.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm glad that you're speaking it even when you confuse the genders. I can tell that the gender thing is going to be the biggest challenge in learning this language!

    ReplyDelete
  9. डियर व्हाइट हिन्दू ,

    मै आपका ब्लॉग नियमित पढती हूं ।
    आप की हिन्दू धर्म के प्रति आस्था देख कर प्रसन्नता हुई ।
    (Just a small comment written in hindi . Hope u will be able to read and understand)

    ReplyDelete
  10. शुक्रिया, मैं अपने लेखन देखने के लिए खुश हूँ. मैं अभ्यास की जरूरत है!

    ReplyDelete
  11. डियर व्हाइट हिन्दू ,
    आपने मेरे comment का जवाब दिया इसके लिये धन्यवाद(शुक्रिया)!
    आपकी हिन्दी वाकई काफी अचछी है ।
    If u don't mind, wish to make small correction to it -
    " शुक्रिया , मुझे आपके लिखने से खुशी हुई । मुझे अभ्यास की जरूरत है । "

    ReplyDelete
  12. Ah, thank you! I always get मैं and मुझे wrong! I appreciate your help, I want to get better with Hindi

    ReplyDelete