Customer Reviews

Introduction to Hindi Grammar (with Audio CD)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I used this book in conjunction with Mrs. Jain's course at the University of California, Berkeley and I found both the book and the course to be extremeley wonderful introductions to what is, in fact, a beautiful language. The text presupposes a familiarity with English and some minor points of grammar, so using the book alone might pose problems for the student who is not concerned with the overall grammatical picture because it is, essentially, a grammar primer. If you are looking to learn conversational Hindi or the colloquial language for use in the streets of India, there might be books that are more appopriate. Mrs. Jain's outstanding grammar and introduction is perfect for the student, however, who is interested in learning the grammar of the language with an eye towards the ability to read, speak, and comprehend high Hindi, colloqual Hindi, and, with a little bit of training, all levels of Urdu.

I've looked through several of the readily available commercial 'teach yourself' books for beginning Hindi students and none of them seemed compatible with what I wanted to know and the way I learn. They were either too technical and full of linguistic terminology or too like a traveller's phrase book with little explaination of grammar and split into the usual sections on meeting people, shopping,visiting the doctor, etc. with no explanation of how to plug different vocabulary into basic constructs so that I could learn to converse on other topics.

Usha Jain's book is much more practical and user friendly, taking you through all the basic grammatical constructs in an order that makes sense, introducing only a small amount of vocabulary but making it obvious how to plug in whatever words you need as you learn them. The pronunciation drills are very good but, if you're teaching yourself, you obviously need to record an obliging native Hindi speaker to use as a model.

If you don't already know Devanagari script, I would supplement this text with something like Rupert Snell's 'Reading Hindi Script' (dry, but nice for its inclusion of handwritten examples)or the McGraw Hill "Your First 100 Words in Hindi' (fun , comprehensive, and you get some useful vocabulary to get you started).
Once you can recognise the characters fairly readily, Usha Jain's book is definitely one of the better options out there.

I have always had a desire to learn Hindi and plan on majoring in Hindi along with Arabic and finish the French degree I already started on. Finding books that are on Hindi is a task in itself. Finding a good one is another even more difficult chore. :p I found Ms. Jain's approach to be very efficient. It truly does introduce the concepts of hindi grammar gradually and in an orderly fashion. There are PLENTY of exercises as you would hope. Plenty of repetition to get the idea of each individual detail of each grammar point she is trying to teach in that particular part. It is done in a way so that you would be able to not only know how to say something and use the correct grammar, but you would also be able to substitute different nouns/adjectives/verbs etc. Of all the resources I have seen this is by far the best one. I also use Teach Yourself Hindi (Complete Course w/ the tapes), and I used Teach Yourself Hindi Script (both good for content, although rather dense and they are a great deal of information to take in so quickly and not to mention rather disorganized) I however would reccommend that you have the Teach Yourself Hindi Script for those already not familiar with reading and writing in Devanagari script. The complete course would also help aid in your studies for further vocabulary that Ms. Jain did not include. All things said now for the negatives of the book. The main thing I dislike about the books is there is no answer key to know that you got the exercises right. She gives an example like "ek kalam hai" (There is a pen) and then you have to make it say "caar kalam hai~" (There are four pens) and then the rest of the problems are just there and you just have to assume you got it right. The other downfall for alot of people (especially those not familiar with Devanagari script and/or those who cannot read it yet) is that the books includes no transliteration whatsoever. It assumes a full understanding of the script. (She does include an introductory chapter on the alphabet and how to write the consonants and vowels and everything you need) So I would highly reccommend getting the most out of that and learning the script as I said before via Teach Yourself Hindi Script then the book should pose little or no problem. All things considered this is an excellent book that is noteworthy and deserving of praise. I would definitely agree its one of the best if not best options out there. YOU WILL LEARN FROM THIS BOOK!! :)

This book it truly only useful IF you have a dedicated teacher of the Hindi language. The vocabulary is mismatched (some words in the book aren't in her glossary!), the individual exercises are not numbered (so its easy to lose you place!) There is no reverse -look up... no Romanization to check your pronunciation against. There are no answers to the the exercises, so I never know if I "got it correct" or was learning things incorrectly. The book is also highly "grammar oriented" so the grammatical terms words are used instead of examples of the words themselves -- this means that your brain has to do two translation 'hops' (three if you are reading the devanagari) to get to the answer (devanagri script/hindi sound -> present obique -> meaning). The Font/Text is small, and there are no pictures, and the audio exercises are not page numbered in the audio so you don't know where you are, or should be reading along in the book. Also the directions are often unclear, and combined with poor or confusing examples and unless you are highly linguistically oriented, or have a dedicated teacher (and a tutor, likely) this is not a good book to learn from.

I have used this book for three semesters now, and finally someone lent me "Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi" by Snell (not the blue Snell and Weightman) and in one chapter everything actually clicked in a way that Jain wasn't able to communicate. I also could finally feel like I could speak, instead of stumble and painstakingly grab for clues.

Update:It was AFTER this and "Your first 100 Words in Hindi" and several other Devanagri comprehension exercises, and other books, that I was finally able to go back and get some use out of it. Though the lack of answer key, literal translation, romanization (in the beginning), clear labeling, comprehensive glossaries (that go both ways and includes ALL words in the book), and word lists, setting apart important information (even if it seems redundant - an example: the paragraph, embedded in the postposition chapter, is one of the most important things, is a nearly unreadable/ unparseable block of text.) It is also highly compartmentalized (who speaks in past habitual, without learning simple past?) and I have benefited more from a more holistic approach.

Given that I'm stuck with it until I have the firmest of grasps on this language, I will continue to learn from and with it, but it is still a highly frustrating book to learn from.

I am studying Hindi at my university, taught by a visiting Fulbright scholar. She was expecting to teach 'heritage' students, and was therefore unprepaired for the 4 non-heritage students who registered for her class. No curriculum, no texts. She very successfully taught us to read and write Devanagari script, but we were all struggling with how to learn grammer and with beginning to speak with understanding. I was so relieved to find Usha Jain's book. It makes sense! And it is so well laid out for the beginning Hindi student. I recommend it highly, and I look forward to future texts from this very gifted teacher.

I first encountered this book while studying Hindi at the State Department; it is part of their outstanding curriculum. This is absolutely NOT a "teach yourself Hindi" book, and hooray for that! I find there are too few real textbooks available that meet this text's high standards, and far too many travel phrasebooks out there.

This is a systematic and detailed account of Hindi grammar; I work as a translator and consider this one of my most essential resources.

I would highly recommend this book to any serious student of the language for its precision, clarity, and overall quality. Sure, it's $40, but that's a decent price for a textbook, and that's exactly what this book is.

This is an excellent book for beginners like me. The exercises are easy to follow and learn from. It's giving me a much better understanding of the very basics of Hindi. Don't expect this to teach you everything about Hindi as it's only basic grammar.

Usha R. Jain has written an excellent grammar for the Hindi Language. Jain starts with the most simple grammatical constructs and proceeds to more complicated sentence structures. Each chapter builds on the rules presented in the previous chapters. Each chapter is organized into three parts. First, Jain presents a description of the grammatical rule and illustrates it with a number of example. The second sections consists of a number of exercises in which Jain presents a template sentence followed by a number of sentences which require students to make substitutions or transformations. The third section of each chapter is a set of English sentences for students to translate into Hindi. The one drawback is that the glossary is poorly organized. The glossary presents English translations of Hindi words grouped by word type (nouns, verbs, etc.) It would have been better to list all words in a single, alphabetical list. An English to Hindi glossary would also have been useful.

This was a great book, accompanied by a great course syllabus. For all the Usha Jain fans out there, no worries, part 2 is on the way...she's test driving it on our class!

This book is very helpful when learning Hindi grammar. You won't be disappointed, it is well worth the investment if you are a serious Hindi learner.