Three weeks before we left for India I overheard a guy in my Friday morning yoga class speaking to the instructor. Hearing the word "Hindi", I quickly approached. Turns out he teaches Hinduism as part of a World Religions series at Stony Brook University and is a Hindi and Sanskrit instructor.
It seemed like a good idea to take a few lessons before the trip so I could say simple things like my name and ask people theirs. I took five lessons over the next two weeks and tried to keep up with the ten million things he thought I should learn immediately. This was impossible, even though my instructor, Isaac, made recordings for me to practice with. When I got to India, I was able to say a few more words than on previous trips, which was nice. But the only time I worked up my courage to ask someone their name using a complete sentence I was met with a blank stare. Of course this was in Chennai where people speak Tamil, not Hindi.
Still, I am not ready to give up and am going back for more lessons, just once a week. This time we are starting at the beginning with the alphabet in Devanagari script, no less. I made my flash cards and now practice writing and saying the letters, so far every night. I am still working on the first 10 consonants out of 25. After that, of course, will be the vowels.
It seemed like a good idea to take a few lessons before the trip so I could say simple things like my name and ask people theirs. I took five lessons over the next two weeks and tried to keep up with the ten million things he thought I should learn immediately. This was impossible, even though my instructor, Isaac, made recordings for me to practice with. When I got to India, I was able to say a few more words than on previous trips, which was nice. But the only time I worked up my courage to ask someone their name using a complete sentence I was met with a blank stare. Of course this was in Chennai where people speak Tamil, not Hindi.
Still, I am not ready to give up and am going back for more lessons, just once a week. This time we are starting at the beginning with the alphabet in Devanagari script, no less. I made my flash cards and now practice writing and saying the letters, so far every night. I am still working on the first 10 consonants out of 25. After that, of course, will be the vowels.
This blog post is a fine example of procrastination. Really, how much easier to compose a few paragraphs for the blog than to practice ka, kha, ga gha....क, ख, ग , घ....
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