Intro #1: About Hindi
So before we begin to learn Hindi it’s probably a good idea to learn what Hindi actually is first!
So then, what is Hindi? Well it’s one of the widest spoken languages in the world with around 500 million speakers. In fact that’s only outnumbered only by Mandarin Chinese, English and Spanish! It is mainly spoken in and around the areas of northern India but, of course, it is spoken by communities all over the world. Hindi is also a very powerful language in terms of global politics, with India being one the fastest growing economies in the world. It is also the main language of Bollywood, the billion dollar film industry.
A map showing the areas of Northern India where Hindi is spoken. Image by Wikipedia.
Hindi is a member of what language experts call the Indo-European language family. You may be surprised to know English is a member of this family too! This doesn’t mean they’re that similar though. Hindi has evolved from a language called Sanskrit, much in the same way languages like Spanish and French evolved from Latin. Hindi is very closely related to the language of Pakistan, Urdu. They’re so close in fact that some linguist say they are the same language! You can learn all about Urdu in the special Urdu section, which you can find here.
Hindi is written with an alphabet which is known as देवनागरी devnaagree - Devanagari. This is introduced more fully on the page Intro #3. Don’t be put off by it’s ‘strangeness’ though, I can assure you it’s easier than you think to learn!
Grammar wise, Hindi is very regular and most of the time everything follows the rules - which makes our lives learning it a lot easier! Of course, don’t be fooled, learning a language is never a walk in the park!
Don’t worry if Hindi seems really confusing and scary to start with - just keep working at it and practicing and you’ll soon get there!
Finally I want to say good luck to you all! And of course please feel free to always ask any questions if you ever have them by using the comments section below.
