Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Hindi Complete Course Package (Book + 2CDs) (TY: Complete Courses)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I'm a native English-speaker who's recently become interested in learning Hindi. I have a background in several European languages but this is my first encounter with an Indian language.

There are many good things about this book. It gives very interesting background on the origin of Hindi, the distinction between Hindi and Urdu, and social-political issues such as the post-independence move to "Sanskritize" Hindi.

The chapters move at a fast pace with much new material introduced very quickly. By the end of this book the reader will have the ability to read, write and understand pretty complex sentences and ideas. For the first few chapters Hindi words are given both in Devanagari (the standard Hindi script) and the Roman alphabet, but soon Devanagari alone is used. I find this a good way to go. Personally I cannot imagine someone from a Western background learning Hindi thoroughly without learning Devanagari (or another Indian script) because there are so many different sounds in Indian languages that are not properly conveyed by Roman characters.

Another good point about this book is that it sticks its neck out (so to speak) for Urdu or Persian-derived words at a time when this seems to be out of fashion. Persian-derived words are often used in preference to their "Sankritized" counterparts (e.g. "kitaab" is preferred to "pustuk" as a word for "book"). In this the book probably reflects the reality of spoken Hindi. Persian-derived words are always spelled with the "dot" letters that indicate an Urdu-style pronunciation, which is something I haven't seen in other Hindi books. An example of this is "khus" (happiness).

I actually found the story of the Kumar family that's narrated during the successive chapters to be rather amusing. It helped some of the concepts and vocabulary stick in my mind. The many exercises are mostly very useful.

The book would have been improved with a slightly more systematic organization. As other reviewers have noted, vocabulary is introduced haphazardly on an "as needed" basis: for example the Hindi words for "Saturday", "Sunday" and "Monday" are found in the index, but not those for "Tuesday" or "Wednesday".

Also, I feel that too much esoteric vocabulary is introduced in the earlier chapters, possibly slowing down readers when they should instead be mastering the basic grammatical concepts. Thus the somewhat advanced word "adhyaapak" (teacher) is introduced at the same time as the reader is learning such fundamental things as "kyaa" (what?). Because of this, I strongly recommend that people learning Hindi not worry too much about learning all the vocabulary for each chapter. Instead concentrate on learning all the grammar and constructions and go back for the vocabulary later.

Another minor quibble is that some "compound" letters (the curse of anyone trying to learn Hindi script) are used late on in the text without ever being defined. However I would recommend the same authors' "Beginners' Hindi Script" for this.

Despite these weaknesses, however, I have still found this by far the best introduction for a Westerner trying to learn Hindi (I've looked at pretty much all the ones I could find on Amazon). The authors have an excellent command of English as well as Hindi (not something that can always be said of some of this books' rivals). The accompanying CD makes this book even more valuable.

I started this course with NO prior knowledge of the Hindi language (aside from a few Bollywood movies) and must say I'm very thrilled with my purchase.

I have found it to be thorough, well organized and moving at a very comfortable place. Everything I need is right there when I need it. In fact I've even been able to read ahead a couple of chapters and I'm surprised at how much I'm comprehending (very motivating)! The audio CD is good quality and moves at a comfortable pace (I did not find it too fast like others reviewers have mentioned).

I did take some time to familiarize myself with Hindi script (like it suggests you do, by the way), and to practice writing it (which to me is a fun exercise in itself!) before diving in, which I'm sure has really paid off.

I highly recommend this to anyone wishing to learn this beautiful language!

I find I can slog my way through this book using my training as a linguist and a student of several other languages, but I can't imagine a regular joe getting much out of it.

The Devanagari text is rendered in a tiny typeface, and no instruction is given on how to write the letters; after finding some web sites that show this, I discovered I was doing it all wrong. The writing system is also just dumped all at the beginning of the book, rather than being introduced gradually throughout the lessons (and a writing system this complex needs to be introduced gradually). Some glyhps that show up later aren't even in the beginning section on the writing system.

The material is poorly organized, in that school of thought that believes putting the vocabulary & grammatical notes AFTER the text that uses them is a good thing. In real life conersation you hear things you don't know, but you can ask the speaker as soon as they've said it; not so with a book, where it's merely annoying to come across words & constructions that you know could have been introduced beforehand. I quickly took to reading each section of the book backwards.

Vocabularies are not organized in any conceptual way that would aid learning (opposite or similar pairs or groups, sequences, and the like). Some people have the initiative to redo word lists in their own notebooks, but I don't see why a pedagogical book can't take a little trouble to be more functional as a reference as well.

The end glossaries are not symmetrical--although you can look up some (not all!) Hindi words for numbers and get their English translations, you can't find any number in the English-to-Hindi section, for example (they're hidden in an appendix elsewhere in the book).

The early recorded dialogues are TERRIBLE; stress and intonation are obviously wrong, the actors seemingly talking 'slow and loud' for the benefit of the beginning student. It doesn't help. I've taken to buying Bollywood DVDs for my dialogue needs and just trying to pick out words & phrases I've learned so I can be sure I'm hearing authentic pronunciation.

If you want to learn Hindi, there aren't a lot of books out there, especially packaged with audio material. You'll be able to work out the language using this book, but it's going to be a lot more work than it should have to be.

If you're serious about learning how to read, write, and speak the Hindi language fluently, this is the book to get. I've never seen a Hindi book which is better organised or explains Hindi grammar and usage better than this one. The dialogues and many of the exercises form a soap opera type story about a Delhi family which makes it more enjoyable. There are also up-to-date Hindi-English and English-Hindi vocabulary lists in the back. The book does require that the Devanagari script be learnt so if you're only looking to understand Bollywood films, this isn't the book for you. The Hindi language is much better and easier read in its own Devanagari script so I would highly recommend learning it. I did not have any trouble learning to write Devanagari from this book but if you need extra help the other book "Beginner's Hindi Script" would work.

This book has nearly everything a beginning student of Hindi would need or want. It offers an ample vocabulary, lots of good exercises, (with a key in the back) and its explanations of Hindi grammar are extremely lucid and well-presented. The section on pronunciation is quite thorough, although (as at least one other reviewer has previously remarked) the section on vowels gives British English rather than American English approximations. The only way out of that difficulty of course, is to get the tapes, which anyone learning a new language by themself should do anyway.

The one thing that I thought was lacking when I started using this book was a section that showed how Devanagari is actually written by hand. Two other books on Indian languages in the same series do show handwritten characters (Bengali, by Radice, and Gujarati, by Dwyer). However within the last year, one of the authors of this book (Snell) has published a little book devoted to the Devanagari script that does show how to form the letters. It would make a worthwhile companion volume.

Personally, I found this book to be excellent. The lucid and thorough coverage of grammar, the fairly-large vocabulary, the pleasant and easy-to-read font, the interspersed notes on colloquial divergencies, and the decent audio tapes make this an all-around respectable introduction to Hindi.

The Hindi script, which may take considerable time to master, is given only a chapter of coverage, so I strongly recommend also purchasing a text devoted to teaching it. A bit of caution: The Hindi variant of the Devanagari script, much to my annoyance, departs from the elegant and consistent rules the Sanskrit version mandates. It can take some time and a good deal of effort to master the Hindi script because of its irregularities.

Nevertheless, the text itself is very good and well-worth the price.

First of all let me say to those wanting to learn Hindi:
IT IS NOT HARD TO LEARN. Rest assured.

Snell has a few books out. Beginner's Hindi Script, Beginners Hindi, and Teach Yourself Hindi. There is a method to the madness. For those learning Hindi its a great idea to start out with Hindi script. Its rewarding and very easy to learn. When I first opened the Script book it looked overwhelming (like any new system of writing can seem)but I (and you will) learned fast. Don't waste your time with Beginner's Hindi, its slow and boring and the progress in Teach Yourself Hindi is much more rewarding. Teach Yourself Hindi gives you a solid basis in the first couple lessons and makes you feel comfortable (if not GREAT about yourself) and at how easy it is to learn Hindi (in fact, Snell mentions this in his intro). You progress very fast from lesson 1. He uses vocab from previous lessons, the examples he uses are great and memorization and study of these will motivate you to build your own sentences. I'm a ways along in the book and I can honestly say I could go back to India right now and talk to the friends I've made and we could have a decent conversation. That being said, there are 14 more chapters to go that are jam packed with important lessons. So now for my advice:

Like I said, it isn't hard to learn but I cannot stress the importance of practice. Practice, practice, practice! Learning the vocab in each chapter allows you to draw from vast new pools and gives you the ability to make more and more sentences (and trust me, its a great feeling!)

Despite the fact that there are 18 chapters, fight the feeling to fly through a chapter and think that you've learned everything in that chapter only to move on to the next one. Make sure that you really understand the subjects your're working with, otherwise you're only hurting yourself in the long run.

DO THE REVIEWS! I cannot tell you how helpful they are. You think you understand the subjects in the chapter until you are actually challenged to put that knowledge into play. After doing a few of the problems and refining your knowledge, its then that you say to yourself "aha..I'm getting this".

Don't give up on the first speed bump you come across. I've come across a few, but really you just need to go slow and think it through. You CAN learn it.

While you are studying Teach Yourself Hindi, there are other methods to compliment your study. Get his Hindi Conversation package. Its easy to put on your ipod and take with you and listen to. Repetitive listening will allow you to memorize sentence structure.
Watch Bollywood movies! Alot of them are hilarious and give you a great chance to put your knowledge to use. Also a great chance to pick up on some of the rich, Indian culture.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful. I would recommend Teach Yourself Hindi without fail. Five Stars all the way, baby. Remember the advice I gave you and you can't fail. Theres a world of Hindi speakers out there eagerly waiting to talk to us westerners, so get out there and start talking to them.

I bought this book because I wanted something I could listen to at work and hopefully learn quicker by just constantly listening to the CD's. The CD actually has very little English/explanations. It just reads the Hindi from the book. If you are really serious about learning Hindi, you might want to buy Rosetta Stone's computer software. It is quite expensive, but well worth the money. I found this set to be a nice supplement to that program. This book helps you read and learn how to speak Hindi quite effectively. I would highly recommend this book to everyone.

I was able to learn from this book but with a little extra effort. Overall it has alot of content and you really can learn alot if you have the extra time to sit there and try to rearrange the book so its actually in a logical order. This book would be fantastic if it would actually have some sort of logical order to it. It is awkward to learn like #'s 1,2, and 3 in one chapter then not learn #'s 5, 6, and 14! until four chapters later. I suppose as I said with some extra effort you'd do well and definitely learn as I did. But for those who are not already experienced with learning languages this may not be a good book for you as it uses technical grammar and linguistic terminology. But the examples are pretty good, however the dialogues are VERY VERY boring. Some of the sentences are also very awkward in certain places. You occassionaly come across a grammatical error or typo but for the most part not to bad. All and all I would say this book is okay if you are willing ot give the extra effor to it. Also supplementing it with a book such as "Introduction to Hindi Grammar" by Usha R. Jain would certainly make this book much easier to use.

This book is excellent for brushing up on Hindi if you already speak the language (I can't judge how easy the book would be for someone who is completely new to Hindi, but Hindi is not a difficult language).

It would be a good idea to master the script first with a book dedicated to teaching Devanagari. I've noticed errors here and there in the Roman transliteration that can cause problems for you if you don't notice them.