Talk:Hindi/Introduction

Untitled
नमस्ते

Namaste is hindi's universal greeting, as well as goodbye. It is common to hold ones hands together in front of the chest as praying and bow slightly when saying it.

The 'e' is like the'é'in Café.It will always be like this. In Hindi every letter is pronounced the same in every word. In fact the script used to write hindi is the most phonetic script. This makes learning Hindi very easy compared to english and other languages. In this lesson i will cover the vowels and the difference between dental, retroflex, aspirated and non aspirated consonants. Devanagari is important to know but too lengthy discussion for this, if you do not know it you should learn. But it is not necessary for this lesson.

In hindi, consonants in which you touch the tongue to the back of your teeth are called 'dental' those which the tongue curls slightly and touches the roof of the mouth just behind the gums are called 'retroflex'. Dentals will be lowercase and retroflex will be uppercase letters in my translations.

Aspirated consonants are ones in which a puff of air is released with the saying of the letter. Put your hand to your mouth and say 'pit' with a good amount of force, feel the air? now say 'spit' with less force. not as much air right? The first p in pit is aspirated and in hindi it is important that you do not mix the two.

Vowels in hindi are as follows.

'a' is the schwa and the short a of the language. It is like the 'a' in 'alive', 'about', 'america' and 'associate'. More of an 'uh' sound.

'aa' is long a and like 'a' in 'father'.

'i' is short i and like that in 'liter of coke'.

'ee' is long i and like the two ee's in 'seek'.

'u' is short u and like the 'oo' in 'soot' (NOT as in poo =)

'uu' is the long u like in 'poo' =)

'e' has already been explained

'ai' this is like the 'a' in 'mad' 'dad' 'sad'

'o' is like long o in bolt, and bowl. though remember PURE vowel. no movement.

'au' this is like in caw. but dont move your tongue or mouth to produce the w at the end. remember "pure vowels". Another important matter, 'c' in hindi is not 'k' or 's' as in english. it is always 'ch' like in church. careful not to aspirate it too much because theres a difference between 'c' and 'ch' in hindi.

Finally, in hindi there is nasalation of vowels. this just means that the vowel is pronounced more through the nose than usual. Say while holding your nose to approximate the sound. In my transliteration it is ~ after the letter.

Now, i think were ready for some script. You should read this aloud as this will help implant it in your brain, you may not notice but you will learn alot just by reading it to yourself even if you do not understand most of it! At the end i will explain most of it and you should read it again.

िहन्दी पाठ

आदमी : नमस्ते ! आप कैसी हैं ?

औरत : मैं अचछी हूँ, और आप?

आदमी : मैं भी अचछा हूँ ।

औरत : अचछा !

आदमी : क्या आप अंग्रेज़ी बोलती हैं?

औरत : नहीं, मैं अंग्रेज़ी नहीं बोलती हूँ । आप कहाँ से हैं?

आदमी : मैं अिर्का से हूँ ।

औरत : अचछा ? और आप िहन्दी बोलती हैं?

आदमी : हाँ, मैं थोड़ा थोड़ा बोलता हूँ, लेिकन बहुत ज़्यादा नही ।

औरत : अचछा ,तो आपकी िहन्दी बहुत अचछी है ।

आदमी : धन्यवाद,नमस्ते ।

औरत : नमस्ते ।

aaj ka hindi paTH.

aadmee: namaste! aap kaisee hai~?

aurat: mai~ acchee hoo~, aur aap?

aadmee: mai~ bhee acchaa hoo~

aurat: acchaa!

aadmee: aap angrezi boltee hai~?

aurat: nahee~, mai~ angrezi nahee boltee hoo~. aap kahaa~ se hai~?

aadmee: mai~ amrikaa se hoo~.

aurat: acchaa? aur ap hindi boltaa hai~?

aadmee: haa~, mai~ thoRaa thoRaa boltaa hoo~,lekin mai~ bahut zyaadaa nahee~.

aurat: accha, to apkee hindee bahut acchee hai.

aadmee: dhanyavaad. namaste.

aurat: namaste.

Hindi Lesson.

Man: hello, how are you?

Woman: I am well, and you?

Man: I too am well.

Woman: Good!

Man: Do you speak english?

Woman: No, i do not speak english. Where are you from?

Man: I'm from america.

Woman: Really? And you speak hindi?

Man: Yes, i speak a little, but i don't understand very much.

Woman: I see, your hindi is very good!

Man: Thank you. Goodbye!

Woman: Goodbye!

look at this.

mai~ hoo~ - I am.

aap hai~ - you are

yah hai - this is

Now, i will explain something very important in hindi. Look at the sentence 'aap kaisi hai~?' It is translated as 'how are you?' in english. Now as an english speaking person you would look at this and say 'aap = how, kaisi = are, you = hai~'. But this is incorrect. In hindi the word order is very different. the verb comes at the end of the sentence! so the auxillary verb 'hai~' (are) is at the end while 'aap' (you) is at the beginning. So it is really 'you how are?'. In english this sounds strange but in hindi it feels quiet natural! So the word order is Subject + object + verb. 'mai~ hindi bolta hoon~' (i speak hindi).

You may also notice that 'acchaa' is translated as 3 phrases/words. 'i see' 'good' and 'really?'. this is because the word is a sort of catchall for these types of things. It's a very useful word to know.

In 'mai~ amrika se hoo~' the word 'se' means 'from' but in hindi its not from america but america from! they are postpositions and not prepositions as in english.

Ajectives come before the noun they describe. but something very important is that they agree with their noun in gender. all nouns in hindi have gender. this is too much to explain here but just know that 'bolti' and 'bolta' both mean 'speaks' but 'yah aurat boltee' and 'yah aadmee boltaa' mean this woman speaks, this man speaks. the difference is the ending sound. this is not for all words but a majority of words. some do not change at all.

Questions. in english a question can be formed by changing the word order, or simply indicated in tone. ie. 'you speak hindi.' as opposed to 'you speak hindi?'. This is similar in hindi but you do not change the word order. you simply place 'kya' in front of the sentence. 'kya aap hindi boltaa hai~?'

and finally some vocabulary to help you get through the proper Hindi lesson.

nahee - no/not

haa~ - yes

acchaa - good, really?, i see, ect.

aadmee - man

aurat - woman

bhi - too

Well, thats all and I hope this introduces you to the language of Hindi and encourages you to learn more! Hindi is a beautiful language and has been called the language of songs because it is very musical. Many people speak Hindi and a widely unknown fact is that it is 3rd or 4th most spoken language in the world behind English and Chinese. It is spoken in India. =)