Teach Yourself Hindi Conversation [Hardcover]

Rupert Snell (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0340890126 | ISBN-13: 978-0340890127 | Publication Date: March 31, 2005

This stand-alone, all-audio course can be used by those who have little or no knowledge of the language, by those who want to learn or brush up basic conversation skills, and by more advanced learners who require extra audio material to complement their current courses. The ten units or 'conversations' cover the situations you are most likely to find yourself in while on holiday or on business abroad. They are divided into two parts, with a dialogue in each part. The dialogue in Part 2 reuses the vocabulary and phrases from Part 1 in a slightly different context. Both parts start with an introduction to the words and phrases you'll need, followed by the dialogue. Finally it's 'Over to you': you take part in the same dialogues following the English prompts, playing all the roles in turn. So you get lots of opportunity to practise! Frequent track markers divide the CDs up into short, easy-to-use clips. Vocabulary and phrases in the first two CDs are kept to the basics and are introduced gradually with lots of opportunity to repeat and practise, to improve your confidence in both speaking and understanding. The third CD concentrates on helping you improve your understanding, so that you will be able to hold two-way conversations with people who speak very fast or use words and phrases you do not know. The course comes on three 75-minute CDs and has an accompanying 48-page booklet which gives the dialogues and the translations of the dialogues, for those who like to see the written word or want additional practice. The Hindi is transliterated into romanized script. The booklet also provides a basic glossary of the words and phrases used. This is the perfect complement to "Teach Yourself Hindi" and "Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi".

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I am a big fan of this series. Commercial packaging, simple concept and a competitive price make these well worth trying...One to watch." -- The Bookseller 20050429

About the Author

Rupert Snell is former Reader in Hindi at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and has been teaching Hindi since 1975.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Teach Yourself (March 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340890126
• ISBN-13: 978-0340890127
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,418,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lose the English and the music., October 28, 2006

By 

John-Allen Payne (Rochester, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Teach Yourself Hindi Conversation (Hardcover)

This CD offers clear and copious listening practice to comfortably paced conversations between Hindi speakers. I give it only three stars because the amount of spoken English and music on the CD becomes a distraction after repeated listenings.

The whole first band contains information, introduction, and instructions read aloud in English. Although it can be skipped over, it is not necessary to have it on the CD in the first place because most people can read that information in the accompanying booklet.

After that, each individual conversation is preceded by arpeggios and bursts of music, then by a description of the setting read aloud in English. These cannot be skipped over and must be listened to repeatedly.

I think that the music should be eliminated and the setting information should be given in the booklet so that these do not have to be heard multiple times. In this way, a listener could experience continual immersion in the target language without distraction.

Other than the two drawbacks, the quality of the CD is excellent.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource, but not on its own, April 5, 2008

By 

Jeffrey Lehman (Market Harborough, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Teach Yourself Hindi Conversation (3CDs + Guide) (Teach Yourself: Language) (Paperback)

This is fantastic. I already know all of the grammar covered in it, but it is great for revision. I listen to it during my daily commute and on my evening walk. It is enjoyable because it follows a loose storyline, and has touches of humour as it goes along.

The way the first two CD's work, is that there will be a conversation given, with a track explaining vocabulary, grammar, etc. There are opportunities to join the conversations sometimes. It is not a "total immersion" program, like Pimsleuer. But I think it is better for it. Because it gives explanations, the grammar can progress much more than it does on 10 CD's of the Pimsleuer method.

It teaches grammar as it goes along, covering the major tenses, in aap and tum forms, nouns and adjectives, as well as postpositions and how they change nouns and adjectives. The major gaps I noticed are that it doesn't cover "tu" forms, and it doesn't have subjunctive verbs. But it can't have everything!

One great feature is that it has sections covering aspects of pronunciation as it goes along. Very helpful for refining how you speak.

The final CD has conversations for listening practice, without much help as to meaning. It is useful for learning to understand the gist of things without knowing all the details.

Other reviewers have complained about the amount of English, but the point of this course is that you don't actually need to use the booklet. I think it balances everything quite nicely.

One warning, it moves relatively quickly, and unless you are really good with picking up languages, you will need to use a textbook as well, both in order to understand the whole course, and to go beyond the course.

All in all, it is a wonderful supplement to any textbook, but most people will not be able to use it alone.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great supplement to other self-teaching books, June 23, 2007

By 

D. Rachlin "wunland" (Stow, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Teach Yourself Hindi Conversation (3CDs + Guide) (Teach Yourself: Language) (Paperback)

Anything written by Rupert Snell is a best bet. His other books in the Teach Yourself series are wonderful, especially the Beginners Hindi. I agree with the other reviewer that the repeated music between sections becomes quite annoying, but this is true for the entire new conversation cd series. Nevertheless, this is a fantastic addition to your Hindi learning materials.
It is also important to note that the booklets only use Romanized writing, so don't expect the "real" Devanagari script. The series is meant primarily for auditory comprehension, but it would have been nice to see the words in the original writing system.