Customer Reviews

Hindi: A Complete Course for Beginners Book and 2 Tapes

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you really want to learn Hindi, I recommend you this book! Nothing to do with all the other manual that I've found around, which were unclear and approximate. This one is complete, clear, step by step, and if you come over the initial difficulty of learning devanagari script, it really takes you further on in the practical use of the language. I have learned Hindi most of the time studying it on the train while going to work!

Though the book was useful, the vocabulary selected for each unit seemed quite random. As vocabulary is essential to language study, I see this as a serious flaw. In traditional language textbooks, each section usually focuses on a specific topic (the colors, the parts of the body, etc). Here, you just get a list of unrelated words. Often, a unifying thread helps the learner master new vocabulary. When there isn't one, such as in the case of this book, the process may become more difficult.

This is the best book I've read for learning Hindi. It's clear, thorough, and amazingly systematic. It's a bit difficult for a complete beginner, however, so if you're starting from zero, you might consider doing another course first to work up to this one. Additionally, you might want to get a bit of practice with the Devangari script before launching into this book because you need to have learned it by the end of Unit 5 in order to do the other 13 Units, and the type is kind of small. The cassettes are also good--the native speakers speak clearly, and there's no irrelevant discussion in English.

This book/audiotape is definitely not for beginners learning Hindi. So, do not get this book if you have not been exposed to the language. It progresses very quickly into Devangari script and I promise you that the book will end for you there if you cannot read Devangari. This book seems to be for those seriously wanting to learn Hindi and not for those merely wanting to recite lines from memory.

This book is very theoretical. It is well structured, but it surely takes forever to be able to talk a couple of every day sentences. It goes to the Hindi script too fast (Chapter 5). After that you cannot proceed without being able to read Devangari. On top of that it doesn't teach you the script, it just shows all the letters and tells you how to pronounce them. The script is too small to be able to practice it correctly. It is absolutely not for beginners, because a quick entry into the language is not easily possible.

This book very clearly explains the Hindi alphabet, sound system, as well as sentence formation and grammar throughout. It's great for those seeking fluency in Hindi easily and accurately. This is the older edition of the book by these authors which I noticed contains detailed vocabulary for terms of relation which were left out of the newer edition.