Image by Ron McGeary 
Problems Viewing the Site?
Are you having problems with the site? If so then read on, because this should help you!
Firstly if you’re having any problems with the audio files then head over to this page here which gives a step by step solution and should get it working again!
Now this site uses Hindi letters (Devanagari), which is ‘foreign’ to most computers. So you might experience problems in correctly seeing the letters.
Most handheld devices, including the iPhone, will have problems displaying Hindi characters correctly!
If you don’t have the correct fonts installed you may see square boxes instead of the Devanagari characters, garbled random characters, incorrect characters or even nothing at all.
Devangari fonts are automatically installed on all Windows, Mac and Linux systems and should work perfectly in any internet browser. However Mobile phones, iPods, iPhones, iPads and many other handheld devises often don’t have Devangari installed or have very poor rending capabilities.
Unfortunately that means that this site loses a lot of its value when viewed though those devices. The only possible solution for this would be for me to display all Hindi as image files, this would not massively increase loading times for all the pages but would prevent people from working with the Hindi dispayed (ie copying and pasting into google) so it’s not something I’m going to consider for a while.
To test if you’re displaying Devagari characters correctly on your system I’ve created two example image files below showing what you should be seeing so you can compare that to what you are seeing.
Test 1:
What you should see:
Your computer displays:
क का कि की के कै कु कू को कौ कृ कं कँ कः
Test 2: (Taken from BBC Hindi)
What you should see:
Your computer displays:
बिहार में चुनाव 21 अक्तूबर से छह चरणों में
If you don’t see these the way you should then you don’t have Devanagari installed correctly on your computer! The first advice I can give is to visit Multilingual Support (Indic) on Wikipedia to try and find the issue. If that doesn’t solve your issue then feel free to tell me here explaining your problem and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
Lesson #19: Numbers 11 - 20
So last time we looked at numbers we covered the Numbers 0 - 10. Can you remember them all? Keep practicing! Today we’re going to cover the Numbers 11 to 20. So let’s not hang around, are you ready to get straight into it?
Some of these items are new words too which means we’ll be expanding our vocab as we go! Here’s a tip before we start; with each picture count up the number of items (in Hindi obviously!) to help you remember the numbers!
11 ११ ग्यारह gyaarah
ग्यारह चाबियाँ gyaarah caabiyaan - Eleven Keys
12 १२ बारह baarah
बारह मटर baarah matar - Twelve Peas
13 १३ तेरह terah
तेरह दिल terah dil - Thirteen Hearts
14 १४ चौदह caudah
चौदह ईंटें caudah eenten - Fourteen Bricks
15 १५ पन्द्रह pandrah
पन्द्रह उँगलियाँ pandrah angliyaan - Fifteen Fingers
16 १६ सोलह solah
सोलह कछुए solah kachue - Sixteen Turtles
17 १७ सत्रह satrah
सत्रह अंगूर satrah angoor - Seventeen Grapes
18 १८ अठारह athaarah
अठारह अनानास athaarah anaanaas - Eighteen Pineapples
19 १९ उन्नीस unnees
उन्नीस भेड़ें unees bheren - Nineteen Sheep (Don’t fall asleep counting them!)
20 २० बीस bees
बीस लड़के bees larke - Twenty Boys
Woah wow! Well done you’ve made it! Keep practicing the numbers to make sure you remember them. Try doing some quick mental maths in your head to keep you on the ball!
Lesson #18: Consonants Part 6; य ya, र ra, ल la and व va
Last time in Lesson #16 we covered the Labial group of consonants. Can you remember them? That’s right, we saw प ta, फ pha, ब ba, भ bha and finally म ma. Now there’s only two more groups left, so are you ready to start on the next group? अच्छा acchaa great!
This group is called the Semi Vowels and they are the letters…
य र ल व
Ready to get straight into it? The first letter in this group is
य ya
This is the letter य ya. This is another super easy letter. Why? Because it actually looks just like the english letter Y and it sounds like the y in ‘yawn’ or ‘yo-yo’. How easy can you get!
The Hindi word for Cow is गाय gaay. Can you see our new letter at the end here? You’re likely to see a lot of cows if you ever visit India, they are considered holy in the religion of Hinduism! Anyway, ready for the next letter?
र ra
This is the letter र ra. This letter is pronounced just like the normal english r, like in the word ‘roll’ or ‘run’. And it kind of looks a little bit like an ‘r’ too, can you see?
Now there’s something a bit special about the consonant र ra and that is when you want to add either of the vowels उ u or ऊ oo to र ra it’s just a tiny bit different. We write it as रु ru and रू roo . Nothing too crazy, just something little to watch out for!
The hindi word for chair is कुरसी kursee. Can you spot our new र ra here? अच्छा acchaa! Ready for the next letter?
ल la
This is the letter ल la. There’s an easy trick to remember this letter; it looks like the top of a heart underneath a T. Can you see? And of course that we love from our hearts, so you’ll then remember that this letter is pronounce like the ‘l’ in ‘love’. Easy!
This is a banana, obviously! In Hindi we call it… केला kelaa. Can you see the letter ल la here? Great! Now if you want to hear a joke about the word केला kelaa then check out Lesson #74 (and it is actually funny, promise!). Anyway ready for the next letter?
व va
This is the letter व va. This letter looks pretty simple, it’s just a little circle on the left hand side of a vertical line! Don’t confuse it with the letter ब ba which we saw last time though, because they do look a little similar!
The pronunciation of this letter is quite tricky. Basically it sounds ‘half way’ between a normal English w and a v. So take the ‘w’ sound in weed and the ‘v’ sound in ‘vote’ and try and find the sound half way between. That’s probably pretty close to the sound of व va. It might take some practice so don’t worry!
Rice, something that’s eaten a lot across India, in Hindi is चावल caaval. Can you spot theव va here? Great!
That’s one more group done! Fantastic! Guess what? There’s only one more group of consonants left now, which means there’s only four more Hindi letters you need to learn! Try and practice the letters we’ve learnt today!
Lesson #15: Pronouns
Pronouns! So right away our first question is; what are pronouns? Well simply pronouns are words like I, you, he, they, she, we etc. They are words that refer to people. Honestly, even if the word sounds confusing, it’s nothing difficult!
Learning Hindi grammar really doesn’t have to be boring and dull like your old text books, if taught properly it can be fun, exciting and interesting!
Ok, now we know what a pronoun is the next question probably asking why do we want to learn about them in Hindi? Well pronouns are the most common and important words to know! You won’t get very far if you can’t refer to someone!
So are you ready to learn Hindi pronouns? अच्छा acchaa great! I’ve broke them up into groups, which you’ll see as you go through! So let’s get straight into it…
Key - Devanagari Transliteration English.
First Person Singular
मैं main I
First Person Plural
हम ham We
Second Person Singular
तू too You (Intimate)
Second Person Plural
आप aap You (Formal)
तुम tum You (Informal)
Woah! Hold on a second, so you’re saying that Hindi has three words for ‘you’?! Well yes, but it’s a lot easier than you think! Let me explain the differences between them…
आप aap in all formal situations to show politeness, like when meeting someone for the first time or talking to someone older than you or simply to show respect.
तुम tum is most common and is used in most informal situations like when chatting with your friends.
तू too is used in very informal and intimate situations, for example when talking to your partner or to young children. It would be considered extremely rude to use तू too talking about someone you are not close with. तू too is often used in Music and Poetry to show intimacy and closeness.
Don’t worry to much about it now, you’ll soon get used to it! Ready to carry on learning about pronouns? Great!
Third Person Singular
यह yeh He / She/ It / This
वह voh He / She/ It / That
Firstly notice that these are not usually pronounced how they are written! When spoken we usually say yeh and voh even though they are written in Devanagari as yah and vah. Don’t let this confuse you!
Third Person Plural
ये ye These
वे ve Those
Just like English we would use यह yeh and ये ye for people or things close to you (in the physical distance sense of the word) and वह voh and वे ve for things further away.
Another thing to notice is that यह yeh could mean either he or she! There’s no difference! So how do you know? Well, you have to rely on other things in the sentence that you’re going to be learning about soon!
If you’ve understood and can remember everything from this lesson then you should have a great big smile like this!
That was quite a lot of words. Did you get them all? Try as hard as you can to remember them because we’re going to be using them all the time from now on!
