I’m sure you all know that the 2010 Commonwealth Games are currently happening in Delhi, India. But did you realise that you can use this as an excellent opportunity to practice and improve your Hindi? Or even, for those who are not yet learning Hindi, can you see that this is a perfect opportunity to start? 

Even just watching the sports you’ll see Hindi words written around the events and stadiums so why not practice by trying to read them, if you don’t know what the words mean see if you can figure it out! 

As an example of how useful this can be below you’ll see a print screen of the countries medal table (as of 08/10) from BBC Hindi. We learnt some country names in Lesson #45 so this is a great application of that. see if you can recognise the ones you already know and then as a bit of a challenge see if you can answer these questions underneath the table. 

1. Which country is first? 

2. What position is Kenya? (Try not cheat by looking for the flags!)

3. Can you read the names of the countries we haven’t covered and can you figure out their translation? (Again, try not to cheat by looking at the flags but of course you can use the flags to help if you get stuck)

4. Are any country names different to the English versions? Can you figure out why? 

5. What do you think is Hindi for ‘Gold’, how about 'Country’? 

6. Can you figure out what कुल kul means? (hint - if you’re good at maths you’ll see it!) 

7. Can you apply that and translate the final title of the table; 2006 में कुल 2006 men kul?

You can leave your answers, or guesses, in a comment at the bottom of this lesson if you want and I’ll tell you how well you did! Good luck! And remember to practice your Hindi with the games!

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