Hindi textbooks and learning resources - elementary to advanced

[Meredith]

In response to questions from members, here's my summary of resources available for Hindi instruction.  If anyone has used any of these books, please do share feedback on them.  Also, if you have experience with others not mentioned here, post your experiences with them, and I'll add them to the main list.

ELEMENTARY

Textbooks

1) Teach Yourself Hindi, ed. Rupert Snell. 

This book is geared toward self-instruction, and works well for that purpose.  (If you do plan to learn Hindi outside a classroom, be sure to buy the version that comes with the audio CD so you'll be able to work on your pronunciation.)  However, it is also used very effectively as the main textbook for elementary Hindi classes at several American universities. 

The biggest strength of this textbook is its logically consistent layout.  Each chapter starts with a conversation that illustrates the grammar points and vocabulary covered in the section.   In early chapters, the Hindi (Devanagari) script is rendered phonetically in Roman script; later, as the lessons progress, the dialogues are printed only in Hindi script.  This shouldn't pose a problem, as Hindi script is entirely phonetic and quite easy to learn (students usually begin reading sentences fluently long before they understand exactly what those sentences mean).  However, if you're worried that you may find the script difficult, Snell has also published Teach Yourself Beginning Hindi Script.  (One can only assume the latter book has more detailed instruction on how to read and write Devanagari, since TYH itself has a section on learning Devanagari.)

TYH offers a sound introduction to conversational Hindi.  It's a good place to start if you'd like to understand Hindi films or be able to hold conversations on the street, but its grammar exercises are very brief.

2) Introduction to Hindi Grammar, by Usha Jain

This book is intended for use in the classroom; as far as I know, it has no CD accompaniment (unlike Jain's intermediate reader).  However, students who have used it praise it for its extensive grammar drills, which makes it an excellent complement to self-instruction via Snell's book. 

3) The Primer of Modern Standard Hindi, by Michael Shapiro

Another highly recommended book, though I myself have never used it.

Other Resources

1) Hindi Word-Book, by Awadesh K. Mishra

My Hindi professor photocopied this book for me.  It was published by the Sanwari International Human Service Institute in Varanasi and is difficult to get a hold of these days, but if you find it, snatch it up at any price!  It's an invaluable collection of must-know vocabulary in 26 subject areas, ranging from numbers to body parts to professions, nouns to verbs to synonyms to conjunct verbs.

INTERMEDIATE

Textbooks

1) Hindi Structures : Intermediate Level, with Drills, Exercises, and Keys, by Peter Hook

I've just been looking this one over.  The organization of Hook's book is a bit random, but it's consistently entertaining (which is downright miraculous for a grammar textbook) and covers a lot of points that others skip.  Hook complements the subject matter with wonderful, casually-phrased explanations that make it simple and easy to master initially formidable forms.  The drills are also very helpful; they come with keys, and include fun stuff like translating, "Hey, you son of a bitch!  That place you're standing on doesn't belong to your father!  Move back!"

(OK, message modified by popular demand to include the translation of that priceless sentence: अबे साले! जिस जगह तू खडा है वह तेरे बाप की नहीं है | हट जा |  Try it out next time you're in India -- win friends and influence people!)

Readers

1) Intermediate Hindi Reader, by Usha Jain

A great collection of short stories (some edited) with an extensive glossary for each.  Bonus: you can choose to buy the reader with a CD on which native Hindi speakers read the stories aloud.  This is immensely helpful for learners' pronunciation and comprehension.

ADVANCED

Web Resources

Peter Hook (aforementioned author) also runs the Mellon Project for Advanced Hindi Instruction.  He hosts grammar lessons, drills and exercises at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pehook/mindex.html.

[Daniel]

The first Usha Jain boolk has so many exersizes that it feels more like a work book than a text book!  if you ahve someone to correct you, its INVALUABLE!

[BollyWHAT?]

Does this mean there's no key in the Usha Jain book?

[palacerani]

Thanx Meredith for your invaluable help.

[Nalim]

Thank you Meredith for your useful list.

[Daniel]

I dont think there is a key.  At leaset, not in the copy I had (the green, counded-corners one), I had to take all of my work to a hindi-speaking friend for answers.

[bollyscot]

I would also add 'Colloquial Hindi', which also comes with CDs or tapes.  This allows the learner to learn Hindi without Devanagari script, as transliterations are used from the beginning.  However, the lessons are given in Devanagari in the back of the book.  For those wanting to learn the script from the outset, this is a little cumbersome, and in my opinion is the book's major drawback, as I would imagine the vast majority of those reading this book would wish to learn the script too.

The book makes a point of teaching Hindi with sociolinguistic perspectives in mind, not only familiarising the learner with the grammar of the lg, but using conversation examples to show how the lg is used in reality, taking account of how the sociolinguistic habits of Hindi speakers differ from those of Americans and Britons.

An example given in the beginning is that of introduction:  whereas an English speaker might say 'Hello, my name is John Smith', Hindi speakers would take turns to greet each other first, and then only then say what their name was; to perform both greeting andf introduction in the same utterance would perhaps be regarded as being pushy.  i will leave it up to others to decide how accurate this is; certainly it doesn't seem to have been entirely true from what I've seen in films, but,then again, these may be rather atypical, as Westernised, modern characters seem to be the norm there.

[maxqnz]

Thanks to your list, Meredith, my copy of "Hindi Structures : Intermediate Level, with Drills, Exercises, and Key  - by Peter Hook" is right now on its way from Amazon.com to me. Thanks!

[Plus]

I dont think there is a key.  At leaset, not in the copy I had (the green, counded-corners one), I had to take all of my work to a hindi-speaking friend for answers.

There's no key.  In the preface, Jain says that her intent was to create a suppliment to textbooks, so I assume she assumes that people are learnng primarily from someone/something else.

[Raspberry_Swirl]

I've read that the Rosetta Stone software is good.

http://www.rosettastone.com/home/catalog?language=hin

Has anyone personally tried it?  I was thinking about using it.

[maxqnz]

I've read that the Rosetta Stone software is good.

http://www.rosettastone.com/home/catalog?language=hin

Has anyone personally tried it?  I was thinking about using it.

If you have a lot of money, and little access to  native speakers, then yes. I was given a copy, and it's very helpful for practicing speech, and is an immersion-style couirse. It is, however, not cheap, and only has a level 1 course available (beginners, I think), so it won't take you that far, probably. If you have a spare $180US, it's not bad.

[maxqnz]

Thanks, Meredith! My "HOOK: HINDI STRUCTURES, Intermediate Level" arrived today. It looks very good indeed, and will help me a lot when I'm ready to move on from Snell's TYH. My copies of Bhatia's Colloquial Hindi are also on their way, thanks to your recommendations.

[maxqnz]

For some reason, the Bhatia series does not come as book and CD together, so I had to order the books and the CDs. The CDs arrived today, so I hope that the book won't be far behind.

[bollyscot]

For some reason, the Bhatia series does not come as book and CD together, so I had to order the books and the CDs. The CDs arrived today, so I hope that the book won't be far behind.

That's odd!  I got mine in a pack together.  I know there are three options: book, tapes/CDs, and books plus CDs.

[maxqnz]

For some reason, the Bhatia series does not come as book and CD together, so I had to order the books and the CDs. The CDs arrived today, so I hope that the book won't be far behind.

That's odd!  I got mine in a pack together.  I know there are three options: book, tapes/CDs, and books plus CDs.

I must have misread the options available at Amazon. As I read it, the otions were, books+cassettes, book, CDs. If I endup with a spare set of CDs, I'll be happy to pass them on to somebody else. 

[bollyscot]

I must have misread the options available at Amazon. As I read it, the otions were, books+cassettes, book, CDs. If I endup with a spare set of CDs, I'll be happy to pass them on to somebody else. 

I think they're gradually replacing the tapes with CDs.  I got CDs with my Colloquial Hindi, but tapes still with my Gujerati, Punjabi and Urdu books....

[maxqnz]

I must have misread the options available at Amazon. As I read it, the otions were, books+cassettes, book, CDs. If I endup with a spare set of CDs, I'll be happy to pass them on to somebody else. 

I think they're gradually replacing the tapes with CDs.  I got CDs with my Colloquial Hindi, but tapes still with my Gujerati, Punjabi and Urdu books....

Unfortunately, Amazon does not make clear whether the book set comes with cassettes or CDs, so I ordered the CDs separately to be certain of getting the CDs, and not getting landed with only cassettes.

[srkitalianfan]

I'm not sure if I can start a thread about Tamil so I'm asking here...recently I got Colloquial Tamil with cassettes from Amazon, and I think that there are a couple of unsatisfactory things about it.
The first being not having a good section for learning the script which I think is pretty important as there are so many sounds we don't have in European languages.
 Another thing is about dialogues that are spoken a bit too fast and for a complete beginner is not easy... are there other resourses or books better than this one?

[Raspberry_Swirl]

Has anyone used the Pimsleur Method?  They have a new Hindi package out.  I've heard others who have used this method for French and German and they swear by it.

[Daniel]

Need to read some stories to work on or maintain your hindi? 
I stumbled across this great page today:  http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Literature/World_Literature/Indian/
One of their links is great for students: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/mideast/hindi/

Want to read some poetry?  http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Literature/World_Literature/Indian/Poetry/

[Arjun]

Because I don't want to spend too much money in books that have no real use for me I wanted to ask the ones of you who had to learn hindi themselves and weren't so lucky to learn it as a baby. ;-)

Which books are essential to build a foundation. So that after this big step you only need a very big dictionary to become a hindi speaker who could live on his own in India without people who can speak English to help him?

[Arjun]

Meredith, do you have the ISBN Number or are there any websites mentioned in the book (Hindi Word-Book, by Awadesh K. Mishra)? How many pages has it? You wouldn't scan it and upload it even if I provided the space? So that many more could download it too? If you can't buy it the copyright is probably not more binding, so we wouldn't violate the law.

[BollyWHAT?]

Because I don't want to spend too much money in books that have no real use for me I wanted to ask the ones of you who had to learn hindi themselves and weren't so lucky to learn it as a baby. ;-)

Most of the people who are sharing recommendations in this topic fit that description.

Honestly, aside from what we've listed here, there's not much else out there, at least not in the States.  Hindi is not exactly one of the most studied languages in western universities.

Meredith, do you have the ISBN Number or are there any websites mentioned in the book (Hindi Word-Book, by Awadesh K. Mishra)? How many pages has it? You wouldn't scan it and upload it even if I provided the space? So that many more could download it too? If you can't buy it the copyright is probably not more binding, so we wouldn't violate the law.

Sorry, I can't scan it, I'm leaving for India next Thursday and I don't have time (or a scanner, for that matter).  No ISBN number, either, because it was never published in the US. 

[Anamika]

Because I don't want to spend too much money in books that have no real use for me I wanted to ask the ones of you who had to learn hindi themselves and weren't so lucky to learn it as a baby. ;-)

Which books are essential to build a foundation. So that after this big step you only need a very big dictionary to become a hindi speaker who could live on his own in India without people who can speak English to help him?

I am currently learning with the book that's Nr. 1 on Meredith's list, "Teach Yourself Hindi". I can highly recommend it.

I only started about two months ago. Because of my work I don't really have a lot of time to spend on learning (just 30 or 45 minutes a day). At first I nearly gave up because of the Devanagari script (which isn't quite so easy as I hoped), and because I have to learn one foreign language with another (I'm German, so this English book is already in a foreign language to me, and I need to translate some grammar explanations with a dictionary...  ...but there is no book like this in German).

Since I'm a stubborn person I kept struggling, and it became easier after the first few chapters. Now after about 8 weeks I find myself understanding many of the simpler dialogues in Bollywood films.  Of course it will be a very long way until I really understand, let alone speak, the language, but yes: the basics can be learned quite easily with the "Teach Yourself Hindi" Book.

[Arjun]

Thanks. I just made an order at Amazon. I hope I get it soon and can learn finally Hindi. But I would really like it if I could get a vocable book which has sections arranged by topics. So you can learn really fast because you can say: I have two eyes. Between my two eyes is my nose. Under my nose is my mouth. I also have two ears , a neck and a chin. And so one. You can imagine it (picturised) and you can create many links and build sentences with many new words in one sentence.
How many pages have you of this book? Maybe you could copy and send them to me (may be after your trip to India, I hope I can go there too sometime, what is the occasion you go there, if I may ask?). I live in Germany but I would of course pay you for the package, delivery charges, cost for the copies plus a bit extra for your work. Of course I would give you the money in advance. And so I can scan it for the rest of the community. If you do this everyone here should benefit of it. Please think over it, I would be very happy if you do it but if not, I have of course to accept it, and I'll do!