自学印地语介绍

introduction

Welcome to Beginner's Hindi!
Is this the right course for you?
The Sharma family
script and pronunciation
The recordings
Where does this book lead?

Welcome to Beginner's Hindi!

Welcome to Beginner's Hindi!
Is this the right course for you?
This course is designed for people who want a structured but userfriendly
introduction to Hindi, whether studying alone or in a class. It
aims to get you into the world of real Hindi as quickly as possible. Each
of the twelve units prepares you for some new social or practical
situations while also introducing the grammar gradually and simply.
We begin with simple statements and questions using the verb 'to
be'; then the various tenses and other structures are explained,
steadily increasing the range of contexts that you can deal with.
There are plentiful examples and exercises; all numbered questions
are provided with answers, either immediately after the questions, or
at the back of the book. The book often addresses you directly,
asking questions about you and encouraging you to use the language
as you learn it. The carefully graded vocabulary for each unit comes
at the end, with full Hindi-English and English-Hindi glossaries
bringing it all together at the back of the book.

The Sharma family
Most of the dialogues are based on the various members of the Sharma family, who live in Agra: Geeta (a doctor) and her husband Raju (a teacher), their children Manoj, Ram and Meena - and a dog, Moti. Because we're dealing with a set of known characters, it's easy to see the different levels of formality that are an important feature of Hindi: for example, we hear the children being addressed less formally than adults and strangers. One or two subsidiary characters,such as Pratap (a student visiting England), also appear in the book Teach Yourself Hindi, which gives a more detailed introduction to the language.

script and pronunciation
The Hindi script, called 'Devanagari', is an extremely systematic
writing system: each character represents a particular sound, making
it the perfect guide to pronunciation. Although a 'roman'
transliteration is given throughout the book, the small effort required
to learn Devanagari is very well worthwhile!
Listen out for two important contrasts in pronunciation. The first is
between 'retroflex' consonants (pronounced with the tongue touching the roof of the mouth, giving a 'hard' sound of the kind associated with Indian pronunciations of words like 'doctor') and 'dental' consonants (pronounced with the tongue touching the upper teeth, giving a 'soft' sound as in an Italian pronunciation of 'I tali a'). The second contrast is between 'unaspirated' and 'aspirated' consonants, such as the pair क ka and ख kha - the first is much less 'breathy' than the second. Vowel sounds are very 'clean': the vowel ए  e is more like the vowels in French 'ete' than in English 'mayday'.

The recordings

This book is accompanied by recordings which will help bring the language alive for you. They  introduce the sounds of Hindi, present the dialogues and other features from the book, and go beyond the book with several further listening and speaking exercises that will build your confidence in using Hindi in real conversations. Pause the  recording whenever you need time to think, and practise imitating the Hindi voices as closely as possible, speaking out loud.

Where does this book lead?
After finishing this book, you may like to look at Teach Yourself Hindi, by Rupert Snell with Simon Weightman: this gives more detail on the grammar, and plenty of reading practice. The web-based course A Door into Hindi (www.ncsu.eduIproject/hindiJessons) has an interactive approach to the learning process; and Hindi films also offer a brilliant way of getting to know the language and the culture it expresses. Most importantly of all, you will find some 400 million Hindi-speakers waiting to talk to you: start speaking Hindi today! Dictionaries: Rupert Snell's Beginner's Hindi DictionaIYis designed for learners and gives a lot of help with sentence formation, while the Oxford Hindi-English DictionaIY by R.S. McGregor is what you need if you want to start reading Hindi newspapers and magazines, many of which are available on the internet.

The Hindi script and sounds

Aspiration
Devanagari: the basic characters
Independent vowel forms ('vowel characters')
Consonants
Dependent vowel forms
The consonants
Thevowels
Conjunct characters
Nasals
Other signs
Loanwords from English
Silent 'Inherent vowels'

The Hindi script and sounds

Although a roman transliteration is provided for all the Hindi in this book, learning to read and write the Devanagari script is extremely worthwhile. Its phonetic basis makes it really easy to learn; and if you're in India, being able to read the Hindi all around you in signs and posters will bring its own reward, even before you start reading

more ambitiously. As you begin to learn Devanagari, there's a very useful web-based 'Hindi script tutor' to help you learn the characters and their sounds: http://www.avashy.comIhindiscripttutor.htm; this  website, devised by Richard Woodward, teaches and tests the script inter-actively, and demonstrates the sounds of Hindi. And for a detailed introduction to Devanagari, see Rupert Snell, Beginner's Hindi Script (Hodder & Stoughton, 2000).