What is the best way to study Hindi vocabulary?

Hindi is the lingua franca of the Hindi belt and to a lesser extent other parts of India (usually in a simplified or pidginized variety such as Bazaar Hindustani or Haflong Hindi). Hindi, or more specifically Modern Standard, is a language spoken in India. Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language that is mostly spoken in India. Outside of India, several other languages are officially known as “Hindi,” but they do not belong to the Standard Hindi language mentioned here and instead are descended from other dialects, such as Awadhi and Bhojpuri. Fiji Hindi, which is the official language of Fiji, and Caribbean Hindustani, which is spoken in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname, are two examples. Apart from the script and formal vocabulary, standard Hindi is mutually intelligible with Standard Urdu, another recognized register of Hindustani as both share a common colloquial base. Hindi has been described as a standardized and Sanskritised register of the Hindustani language, which itself is based primarily on the Khariboli dialect of Delhi and neighbouring areas of Northern India. Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, is one of the two official languages of the Indian government, along with English. It is an official language in nine states and three union territories, as well as a secondary official language in three other states. Hindi is also one of the Republic of India’s 22 scheduled languages.   As a linguistic variety, Hindi is the fourth most-spoken first language in the world, after Mandarin, Spanish and English. Hindi, along with Urdu as Hindustani, is the world’s third most spoken language, behind only Mandarin and English.

And, despite all the time and effort, you have put aside to study Hindi verb declensions or learning your existing vocabulary religiously, you aren’t able to communicate fluently or more than simple greetings because you missed garnering a critical necessity! New Vocabulary!

Languages are learnt on several levels, such as:

• Written and Oral comprehension
• Active and passive vocabulary

A. Written and oral comprehension

Your vocabulary is greatly affected by written and oral comprehension: 

1. Registering words while Reading & Listening could vary greatly. 

Also, Reading (alphabet or transliteration) – and hearing the language are two entirely different things. Unless you are one of those few, blessed with a clarified, precise hearing and an expert ear, there will always be some amount of deviation or variation in what you hear, when the words or phrases are spoken by a native speaker versus what you read in a vocabulary list or books and what you hear.

2. Recognizing words when someone is Speaking could be different but Writing Hindi is the same

Also, someone with Hindi as his mother tongue will certainly be speaking faster than you, and could possibly be speaking in a dialect different from one known to you. We never focus on dialects to begin with. When we read literature, we focus on the words and try to grasp their meaning, without laying much emphasis on their pronunciation. While speech could differ, the words when written will always look the same when written down.

B. Active versus Passive Vocabulary

One major difference between passive and active vocabulary is understanding and speaking and how easily they come to you. 

It is much easier to understand when something is spoken because all you need to do is register the words and add to your vocabulary. Having said so, I assume that you were taught enough examples of day to day used Hindi phrases to be able to comprehend and differentiate between the subject, object and verb. Now that makes up for your active vocabulary. 

However, when you try to initiate conversation, you not only have to find the right words from passive or dormant vocabulary but also ensure: their usage in the right context, their correct arrangement or order in a sentence, usage of the right gender, declining the verb tenses correctly, matching adjectives in number and gender to the nouns, etc. Now, while it’s easier on paper, it suddenly turns into a grand challenge, when you need to accomplish it, in front of a person who is waiting for an answer, impatiently, or maybe judging you?!. You could also be afraid of getting it wrong and being misunderstood, or your pronunciation may not be up to par!

All these lead to making speaking more difficult than reading or writing. 

Fun fact: It’s much easier to speak a language when drunk because you simply use words from your passive vocabulary, without overthinking!

Listen carefully, romanize to get the right pronunciation, learn phrases expressions and slangs, connected with their respective context, look for synonyms in online dictionaries, read through an English-Hindi dictionary to gather more words, use online Hindi thesaurus, shed away your inhibitions, accept your mistakes, tag along with authentic resources on the internet, speak up, look for new avenues to garner new vocabulary; be it online videos, audios, radio, music playlists, reading material, magazines, books, pdfs, presentations, articles on social media, newspapers, movies; just about anything reliable, stay in touch with a teacher or native speaker who has good command and knowledge of the Hindi language and can prove resourceful for you. All of these shall help you study Hindi vocabulary better. 

The terms “Hindi” and “Hindu” trace back to Old Persian which derived these names from the Sanskrit name Sindhu, referring to the river Indus. The Greek cognates of the same terms are “Indus” (for the river) and “India” (for the land of the river). The word Hindi was initially used to refer to people who lived in the Indo-Gangetic Plain.  It was derived from the Classical Persian word Hind (Iranian Persian pronunciation: Hendi), which means “heart.” “Hind-related or belonging to Hind (India). ” Amir Khusrow, for example, used the word Hindav or Hindu (from Persian: “of or belonging to the Hindu/Indian people”) in his poetry. 

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