Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #227741 in Books
• Published on: 1995-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Vinyl Bound
• 342 pages

Customer Reviews

A Wonderful Grammar and Introduction to Hindi
I used this book in conjunction with Mrs. Jain's course at the University of California, Berkeley and I found both the book and the course to be extremeley wonderful introductions to what is, in fact, a beautiful language. The text presupposes a familiarity with English and some minor points of grammar, so using the book alone might pose problems for the student who is not concerned with the overall grammatical picture because it is, essentially, a grammar primer. If you are looking to learn conversational Hindi or the colloquial language for use in the streets of India, there might be books that are more appopriate. Mrs. Jain's outstanding grammar and introduction is perfect for the student, however, who is interested in learning the grammar of the language with an eye towards the ability to read, speak, and comprehend high Hindi, colloqual Hindi, and, with a little bit of training, all levels of Urdu.

A good book even without a teacher
I've looked through several of the readily available commercial 'teach yourself' books for beginning Hindi students and none of them seemed compatible with what I wanted to know and the way I learn. They were either too technical and full of linguistic terminology or too like a traveller's phrase book with little explaination of grammar and split into the usual sections on meeting people, shopping,visiting the doctor, etc. with no explanation of how to plug different vocabulary into basic constructs so that I could learn to converse on other topics.

Usha Jain's book is much more practical and user friendly, taking you through all the basic grammatical constructs in an order that makes sense, introducing only a small amount of vocabulary but making it obvious how to plug in whatever words you need as you learn them. The pronunciation drills are very good but, if you're teaching yourself, you obviously need to record an obliging native Hindi speaker to use as a model.

If you don't already know Devanagari script, I would supplement this text with something like Rupert Snell's 'Reading Hindi Script' (dry, but nice for its inclusion of handwritten examples)or the McGraw Hill "Your First 100 Words in Hindi' (fun , comprehensive, and you get some useful vocabulary to get you started).
Once you can recognise the characters fairly readily, Usha Jain's book is definitely one of the better options out there.

यह किताब बहुत अच्छी है!!! (yah kitaab bahut acchii hai)
I have always had a desire to learn Hindi and plan on majoring in Hindi along with Arabic and finish the French degree I already started on. Finding books that are on Hindi is a task in itself. Finding a good one is another even more difficult chore. :p I found Ms. Jain's approach to be very efficient. It truly does introduce the concepts of hindi grammar gradually and in an orderly fashion. There are PLENTY of exercises as you would hope. Plenty of repetition to get the idea of each individual detail of each grammar point she is trying to teach in that particular part. It is done in a way so that you would be able to not only know how to say something and use the correct grammar, but you would also be able to substitute different nouns/adjectives/verbs etc. Of all the resources I have seen this is by far the best one. I also use Teach Yourself Hindi (Complete Course w/ the tapes), and I used Teach Yourself Hindi Script (both good for content, although rather dense and they are a great deal of information to take in so quickly and not to mention rather disorganized) I however would reccommend that you have the Teach Yourself Hindi Script for those already not familiar with reading and writing in Devanagari script. The complete course would also help aid in your studies for further vocabulary that Ms. Jain did not include. All things said now for the negatives of the book. The main thing I dislike about the books is there is no answer key to know that you got the exercises right. She gives an example like "ek kalam hai" (There is a pen) and then you have to make it say "caar kalam hai~" (There are four pens) and then the rest of the problems are just there and you just have to assume you got it right. The other downfall for alot of people (especially those not familiar with Devanagari script and/or those who cannot read it yet) is that the books includes no transliteration whatsoever. It assumes a full understanding of the script. (She does include an introductory chapter on the alphabet and how to write the consonants and vowels and everything you need) So I would highly reccommend getting the most out of that and learning the script as I said before via Teach Yourself Hindi Script then the book should pose little or no problem. All things considered this is an excellent book that is noteworthy and deserving of praise. I would definitely agree its one of the best if not best options out there. YOU WILL LEARN FROM THIS BOOK!! :)