Colloquial Hindi: The Complete Course for Beginners

by Tej K. Bhatia

Book Overview

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415110874
• ISBN13: 9780415110877
• Release Date: December 1996
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

User-friendly intro to an extremely important world language

Bohut acche! Tej K. Bhatia's book is an outstanding, gentle, yet comprehensive introduction to the Hindi language for a beginner. It's difficult to cite the numerous reasons why this book is so valuable for the apprehensive beginning language-learner, but I'll make an attempt to summarize the high points: (1) Bhatia is careful not to overwhelm the beginning learner with the complexities of the Devanagari script too early. He has the perfect instructor's touch here, rendering most of the early dialogues in Roman characters while gradually easing the learner into Devanagari as he/she gains more confidence in the basics of speaking and comprehending. (2) Bhatia's book has just enough grammar to give any Hindi learner a handy mental framework for organizing the rules of sentence construction, without being too intimidating. Happily, Hindi grammar resembles that of Mandarin Chinese in some respects, though not quite as simple as Mandarin-- it's fairly consistent, broad-brushed enough to allow sophisticated emotional and logical expression yet accessible enough that even beginning students can basically vocalize their thoughts after just a couple weeks of study. Bhatia does a fine job of really organizing this grammar in the right sequence, explaining the niceties of Hindi syntax while taking some of the language's trickier aspects (e.g. postpositions, as in Japanese, participles, causatives, the oblique) and making them seem eminently manageable. (3) Pronunciation, often neglected in self-teaching language books, gets more than a cursory treatment here, an asset not to be downplayed! (4) The tape/CDs have a wealth of spoken material and can be conveniently played at home, on the road or on the plane or train or bus. (5) Bhatia's book, as the series title suggests, really focuses on Hindi as a colloquial idiom. While this may at first seem trivial, it's a very important asset to his book! In India, there are in effect two forms of Hindi-- the formalized literary version used in ceremonial and official circumstances, and the popular "Bollywood" Hindi that's used on the street and in the markets throughout India and, indeed, much of the world (including in quite a few South Asian shops in New York City, where this "common Hindi" is a sort of lingua franca). It's this colloquial Hindi (very closely resembling Urdu), essentially, that's so rapidly become a world language and taken much of the world by storm as Bollywood movies and music, among other Indian exports, become so popular. In practice, this "colloquial Hindi" isn't even entirely Hindi, but a hybrid spoken tongue with a Hindi foundation plus plenty of contributions from Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, and other Indian as well as European languages tossed in to spice the mix, popular throughout the Subcontinent in its varieties. While Bhatia doesn't delve too much into the varied vocabulary of this "dialectical Hindi(ish)" language, his dialogues and idio

I beg to differ! Best book for Beginners out there!

I have been learning hindi for the past two years, and I have been using many books in the process, including Snell and Weightman, an older book by Misra and Fairbanks, another book by Surendra Gambhir, and this one by Bhatia. For those starting from scratch, this book is the best option. Snell and Weightman move way too fast and you quickly find yourself in way over your head (unless you already have a background in hindi). I found this Bhatia's romanization excellent because it emphasized the difference between english and hindi sounds, and most importantly, Bhatia was consistent throughout (though hopefully some of the typos towards the end will be fixed in a future edition). His pronounciation introduction is also the best I've seen as far as emphasizing and drilling Hindi vocal nuances. The pacing of the book is very comfortable for the complete beginner.Bhatia also does not take anything for granted. A lot of important questions left unanswered by other books are treated thoroughly in this text (like the compound use of "lena", "jaana", and "dena"; the frequent ommision of the "a" sound in the middle of words; and the fact that words like "mahal" and "kahana" are pronounced "mehel" and "kehena"; just to name a few...) You are really able to digest everything as you go along. Bhatia's word list and grammatical summary in the back are god-sends, and his mnemonics like "nerd nouns" and "laal adjectives" are clever and effective. He also puts his lessons in a cultural perspective that is crucial for using your hindi socially.One criticism I would make is the lack of emphasis on the devanagri script. If you use this book, you should really take the initiative and learn the script. It will help you as you progress to more advanced books.It seems like the few who gave this book a bad wrap are educators who are used to hindi being taught in a certain way. I think the things that make this book different also make it the best. My recommendation is start out with this book, then go through Snell and Weightman, using the early lessons as review, then go through Surendra Gambhir's pricey but excellent "Spoken Hindi" set. All these books have their lessons on cassette. I transferred all the lessons to CD, which made my studying much more efficient. Also get McGregor's beautiful Hindi-English Dictionary which will be a cozy campanion throughout. If you can even find the Misra and Fairbanks book, don't bother. It is quite antiquated and impractical, and the tapes are a nightmare. Happy studying!

Whoa!

I felt Colloquial Hindi was like teacher inside a book teaching me. I learned so much about the Indian culture, food, and Hindi. For example, I never new the swastika was the Indian sign of hope and prosperity. Not only did this book teach me Hindi quite thoroughly, but the culture as. It was like going to India and learning Hindi there!

wow!

As an indian wanting to learn my mother tongue, this course is amazing!

Great Intro to Spoken Hindi

An excellent book for beginners, like the title implies, it is mainly a course in Colloqial Hindi, and almost omits the Devanagari syllbary entirely. There is only one chapter on it, but that chapter is very helpful all the same. The tape that comes with the book is a necessary element; it is integrated with the exercises in the book quite nicely, so make sure you get the cassette as well. The romanisation scheme is weird, but it's not too difficult. As an introduction to spoken Hindi, this can't be beat. For a better knowledge of the Devanagari syllabary, I would recommend Snell's "Teach Yourself Hindi".