Product Description

Specially written by an experienced teacher for self-study or class use, the course offers a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Hindi. No prior knowledge of the language is required. This new edition features extended advice and information on Hindi scripts, in particular Devangari.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1100566 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-24
• Formats: Audiobook, CD
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: CD-ROM
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

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!

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 idiomatic expressions do a fine job of conveying true conversational Hindi to the learner and thus providing a nice basis for communicating in the popular Hindi that's actually used between native speakers.

In its dialectical varieties, Hindi-Urdu has close to a billion speakers worldwide, may soon become a UN official language and-- along with Spanish and Mandarin Chinese-- may well be one of the "essential languages" of the 21st century as India continues its ascent. Moreover, since Hindi is a fellow Indo-European language, it has enough similarities to intrigue and delight a native European-language speaker and smooth the learning process. In fact, if you've already learned an important European language like French, German or Spanish-- or Farsi Persian or Dari, which Hindi-Urdu in many ways resembles-- you'll have a headstart in mastering the quirks and structures of Hindi, especially as Bhatia presents it.

Besides which, Hindi is a beautiful and poetic language that sings as much as it speaks, equally at home conveying complicated scientific concepts as in expressing the deepest emotions of the heart. Bhatia is an experienced and talented teacher of this wonderful language, and after just a couple months of studying you'll find yourself able to communicate at a decent level, maybe even humming some Hindi music during your lunch break.

Book great, cassettes okay...
This book is clear and comprehensive, yet simple enough for a complete beginner. The reader can choose to learn just spoken Hindi or to also learn to read and write since all of the dialogs are written in romanized Hindi as well as in the Devanagari syllabary. The cassettes are necessary, but poor compared to the cassettes from other courses. The dialogs are read only once, very quickly, with almost no opportunity to practice repeating what you hear. The leftover space on the tapes are filled with discussion in English of questionable utility.