Introduction:

Hindi is the first official language of India, alongside English, and is spoken as a lingua franca across the Indian subcontinent and Indian diaspora. Hindi is one of the world’s “Big Five” languages alongside English, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. More than one billion people speak it, and about half of those are native speakers, mostly in northern India. Hindi shares its roots with other Indo-Aryan languages such as Sanskrit, Urdu, and Punjabi, as well as Indo-Iranian and Indo-European languages spanning Tajik to Pashto to Serbo-Croatian to English. Knowing even basic Hindi, whether for heritage, business, or pure curiosity, will allow you to communicate with nearly 1.5 billion people on this planet and become immersed in a rich language and culture.

Hindi can be written in the Latin alphabet, which is great for learners, but you should invest the time to learn the Devanagari script. You’ll learn a lot of Sanskrit words when learning Hindi too. The simplest way to learn any language is to be consistent and dedicated to studying and practicing that language. Luckily Hindi is one of the most popular languages of the world with nearly 1.5 billion speakers, so you have enough people to practice Hindi with!

• Learn the Hindi Alphabet

Devanagari is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal and is the main script used to write Hindi, Marathi, and Nepali. You’ll want to invest the time it takes to learn the script as it will help remove the ambiguity of transliterations. It is written from left to right, lacks distinct letter cases, and is recognizable by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together.

• Soak yourself into Hindi Media

You can watch Hindi news and series in the original language and learn vocabulary through Hindi dialogue spoken by actors with Hindi as a first language. Watching movies is a wonderful way to learn a new language. You can first watch it in English, then in the original language, or put on English or Hindi subtitles depending on your fluency. you can also listen to Hindi podcasts and songs. News stories can be a good way to learn Hindi online: beginners can read the news item synopsis and eventually graduate to the full articles.

• Listen to a recording 

Find and listen to the recording of the Hindi alphabet and then try to mimic the recording. The Hindi alphabet may look a little alien to you, especially if you are a native English speaker, but with some practice, you’ll be able to understand how to make all the Hindi letters sound yourself.

• Learn Basic Grammar

 Till this point, you should be comfortable having a conversation in basic Hindi. It’s a good time to move towards grammar and correct your conceptions about sentence construction. In Hindi, all nouns have a gender: masculine (M) or feminine (F) and it is essential for proper grammar and communication, so when learning Hindi nouns, you must also learn their genders so you can use the nouns correctly.

• Use online courses to practice your skills 

There are several websites and software that offer free online lessons. Find audio and video lessons whenever possible so that you can hear the language being spoken. One such website is Multibhashi that offers online learning courses in not only Hindi but many other foreign and regional languages. They have demo classes available to help you make an informed decision.

Are you learning Hindi? We’d love to hear about it. Tell us why you’re learning Hindi and the steps you’re taking to learn it in the comments.