"jhoot" 1; "pyaar," "mohabbat," "ishq," and "prem" 0

I'm listening to my Teach Yourself Hindi CD, just the first bit, with a keen-sounding man pronouncing the 12 vowels and 34 consonants. Much to my delight, the sounds are pretty familiar to me, after 79 movies. (Yes, I have a spreadsheet. I have many a spreadsheet.) And I recognize quite a few of the words he's using as examples, like...well, I feel guilty about writing them out in roman characters now that I have a devanagari font installed and a book right in front of me explaining which sound each letter makes. Oh, but I don't know how to type with it yet. Ha! Anyway, in addition to the above I heard "one," "two," "three," "five," "lie," and "friend," among others.

This is fun but a little overwhelming. This is my fifth start of a foreign language (bah! fluency is for the single-minded!) (and I shouldn't count Latin, because after a semester I ran away screaming, and probably breaking my Roman historian father's heart) but the first with a non-roman alphabet. So fun!

Comments

t-HYPE said…
I'm curious to know what your other languages are and I agree with you, fluency is overrated! I don't care what you say to someone in their native language, they always try to bust some English out on you! Very frustrating...
JR said…
Hi--I really like reading your page. Re: learning Hindi: if you are trying to learn how to handwrite the script, there is a very good page at http://www.avashy.com/hindiscripttutor.htm that shows you how to make each stroke. When I first started Hindi here at UIUC, our teacher didn't bother to tell us how to write, she just assumed we all knew. That web page saved my life.
Si - That is a fantastic page! My CD had some verbal instructions on how to write, but thsoe were pretty clearly not enough. I listened with my mouth slightly open, going "Huh?"

Hey, if you ever want a movie-watching buddy, you know where to find me!
Keith said…
T. Hype -- English is my native language, bt that doesn't stop people in my neighborhood from insisting on speaking to me in Russian. From what I gather, the English phrase "I don't speak Russian," sounds exactly like the Russian phrase that translates to, "Please speak to me in Russian, but at a faster pace."

I figure all you really need to do is throw in random Hindi words and phrases the same way they throw in random English phrases in the movies.
Keith - The problem is that my Hindi knowledge is mundane, so it won't carry the same punch - I don't know how to say things like "party" and "great" and "oh crap" because those are always in English already. So I'll be able to introduce myself and say I want one of whatever I'm pointing at. No panache whatsoever. If I'm going to sprinkle with random Hindi, I want it to count. Maybe one of my nice Hindi-speaking penfriends will teach me how to say "superwow."
Obi Wan said…
Jhakaas!, when you are in Bombay.
Obi Wan, I am very grateful for this knowledge, but I must admit I'm going to be hesitant to use that often, as it looks to me like it might sound a lot like a word I shouldn't go around yelling at the top of my lungs... So how do you pronounce that, exactly, so I can be very careful in my exuberance?

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