Hindi For Non-Hindi Speaking People

Back Of The Book

Hindi for Non-Hindi Speaking People is an original two-in-one monograph that covers grammar and is a reader for beginners. The book has virtually sprung from Kavita Kumar's long experience of teaching Hindi to foreign students of several nationalities. It can be used both as a classroom text and for self study. It is designed to meet the needs of the novice, taking him/her gradually to intermediate and upper-intermediate levels of proficiency. The book can be gainfully used even by fairly advanced students who, nevertheless, still sometimes make grammatical mistakes in speech and writing.

The book is a complete course in an easy-to-follow style comprising of a series of meticulously arranged and graded lesions (units). A complete course in spoken and written Hindi - a practical course that is both fun and easily comprehensible. A journey to the Hindi alphabet, its vowels, consonants, conjunct letters and phonetic transliteration, through the sections of practice reading tailored to fit interesting and practical daily life situations in India. She explains everything clearly along the way with many opportunities to practice what you learn, gives exercises of reading based on rules explained earlier in the text, lists of antonyms and synonyms, sound words and phrases, and idioms and essentials of grammar dealt with a minimum of jargon.

The book fulfills a long-felt need for reference Hindi grammar for non Hindi-speaking people in or outside the country.

Kavita Kumar was born in November 1936 in Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan). A Master's degree holder from Delhi University, she taught at Directorate of Correspondence Courses, Delhi University; Lady Irwin College, Delhi; Degree College, Panipat; Janaki Devi College, Delhi and Government Girls College, Gorakhpur. She has also taught Hindi to students from England, USA, Germany, Sweden, Norway, France, Switzerland, Japan, Korea and Thailand.
She is married and lives in Varanasi. She has two daughters.

Preface

Having been engaged for over a decade in teaching Hindi to foreign students of several nationalities, I was concerned at the lack of a satisfactory text which would fully meet a student's requirements. I have attempted to design these lessons with a view to introduce the readers to vowels, consonants, phonetic transliteration and speech patterns, in an easy-to-follow, readable style. Grammar structures have been explained first and are then followed by reading and comprehension passages. Glossaries and exercises have been given to enable the learners to assess their performance from time to time.

Situational dialogues have been included in order to enhance the utility of the book for tourists and other visitors to India. The dialogues should equip the reader to cope with routine tasks happening in daily life.

The English translation of Hindi structures may, in some cases, be found to be not very precise or accurate by English speaking people. I am conscious of this anomaly which arises form the inherent bilingual organization; the accuracy has had to be occasionally sacrificed with a view to teaching good Hindi for which a word-for-word translation was considered essential, and which may not exactly be the same as a native speaker might use.

Because of differences in syntax and speech patterns between Hindi and various foreign languages, I have ad to respond to a variety of queries, questions, and doubts from my students; this kind of interaction has been a strong motivation and driving force for undertaking and completing this venture. I have had the good fortune of interacting with a number of discerning, critical, and enthusiastic students, some of whom have themselves been involved in teaching their own native language as a foreign language in other countries; they have read portions of the manuscript and given valuable comments, criticisms, and suggestions, which I greatly value. In fact, the teaching plan incorporated in this book has been successfully tested and as enabled many students, without any prior knowledge of Hindi, to learn to read, write and speak the language fairly fluently.

Apart from my former and present students to whom I am greatly indebted, I wish to thank Mr. Kamal Malik of the Affiliated East West Press Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, and the editorial staff of Rupa and Company, for their helpful discussions, advice, and encouragement. Gyanendra Prasad Shukla deserves special mention for typing both Hindi and English scripts.

Any comments or suggestions for improvement of the text will be greatly appreciated.

Hindi uses the Devanagri script of Sanskrit, believed to be a divine language. Its alphabet is arranged in a fascinating, scientific order, beginning with the velars, moving forward through the prepalatals, palatals and dentals to the labials. Each row has five consonants produced in distinctly separate regions of the mouth, again very scientifically arranged; the aspirates following the non-aspirates, ending in nasal consonants, thus giving a soothing rest to the learner.

Devanagri script is written from left to right. There are no capital letters.

Being a phonetic language it has no pronunciation ambiguities. There are no silent letters. The language is almost read the way it is written.

Indian perception of life in every object is imbibed in the language; hence only two genders, masculine and feminine are recognized grammatically. The native speakers grow up with the language and learn the genders naturally without any special effort. Foreign students are advised to learn the gender with every new noun-word. The sound of a word is the master key initiating the intuitive lead to accurate gender-determination.

During my years of teaching the Hindi language to foreign students, particularly from European countries and America, I have often noticed the difficulties caused by several constructions where the subject is followed by (ko), the causative verbs as well as the use of the same word (kal) for tomorrow as well as yesterday.

Language is after all a mirror reflecting the culture, religion, philosophy and social structure of a country. The basic Hindu belief admitting the supremacy and omnipotence of the creator of the universe, accepting Him as the doer of all activity and assuming for the people a very humble passive role as recipients of His grace or wrath is reflected in the language. Instead of the subject in the nominative case, language constructions with the dative case of the subject (i.e. subject followed by ) are found in plenty; the underlying concept is that the subject is not actively doing the action but things are actually happening to him. For instance while an English language speaker says, 'I am hungry.', 'I hurt myself.', or 'I like it', the corresponding constructions by a Hindi language speaker are 'mujhko bhOkh lagT hai ., 'mujhko cot lagi hai' etc., meaning respectively 'To me hunger is.', 'To me injury is.', or 'To me it pleasing is.'

The profuse use as well as availability of the causative verbs does not sound strange in a society like ours with ages'-Iong, deeply-ingrained caste structure where a class of people has been recognized as mainly existing for providing service to those higher up in the caste hierarchy - without any guilty conscience perhaps! Naturally the native speakers did not consider it worth their effort to devise any syntactic formation to express the meaning of having something done by somebody; instead they learnt dexterously to form causative verb roots by a quick morphological process, in fixing between the transitive or intransitive verb roots and their (na) endings.

Our impressions of the Time as an eternally revolving wheel without any beginning or end never presented any justification for the use of two distinctly separate words for the time past or immediately following the present The verb endings are enough of a clue to help the smooth functioning of our worldly business.

Students will certainly come across several similar constructions while learning the language. However, if interpreted and understood in the religio socio-philosophical background as briefly explained above, they are easily comprehended and mastered.

Contents

	Preface
	Abbreviations
	Unit
	Introduction	1
1	Hindi Alphabets
	Vowels	3
	Consonants	4
	Nasal vowels	5
	Use of 'candrabindu'	5
	Nasal consonants	5
	Use of 'anuswar'	5
	Modified letters from the Persian Language	7
	Syllabic, intrasyllabic use of the vowels	7
	Visarga	8
	Guidelines for pronunciation	8
	Vocabulary -1 : Adverbs, adjectives	9
	Consonants and intrasyllabic forms of vowels written together	10
	Conjunct letters	11
	Names of days	12
2	Pronouns: Nominative case - 1	13
	Pronouns : Oblique case	14
	Simple postpositions	14
3	Verbs of being	15
	Vocabulary - 2: Adverbs	17
	Vocabulary - 3: Verbs	18
4	Present Simple	19-24
	Language structures and models	19-20
	Uses of the present Indefinite tense in Hindi	21
	Reading - 1; Reading - 2	22-24
5	Past Habitual	25-27
	Language structures and models	25-28
	Compare and comprehend	27
6	Imperative	28-31
	Language structures	28-30
	Uses of Imperative	31
7	Compound postpositions	32-36
	Use of	36
	Comprehension - 1; Comprehension - 2	34-36
	Use of as adverbs	36
8	To have	37
	Inanimate objects	38
9	Present and past progressive tenses	39-40
	Language structures	39
	Examples	40
10	Present and past perfect continuous tenses	41-42
	Language structures	41
	Examples	42
11	Past simple present perfect and past perfect tenses	43-54
	Nominative case -2	43
	Changing the verb infinitive to past participle	44
	Language structures: past simple, present perfect, past perfect	45-48
	Examples : Past simple, present perfect, past perfect tense	48-51
	Uses of past simple tense	52
	Uses of past perfect tense	52
	Uses of present perfect tense	53
12	Future simple tense	55
	Language structures: 1 Future simple	55
	Future continuous tense	57
	Future perfect tense-1; Future perfect tense-2	58
13	Presumptive language structures	59-62
	Language structures	59-61
	Examples	61-62
14	Use of the verbs	63-65
	English equivalent 'have already + PP'
15	(To like)	66
	(To like)	67
	(To like)	68
16	Use of 'v. r.'- As soon as	69
	Use of - As soon as	71
	Use of 'v. r. No sooner than	72
17	Ability structure - can, could, be able to	73-77
	Language structures	73-75
	Uses of	76
	Use of the verb	77
18	Probability - Use of	78-82
	Language structures	79-80
	Examples: Present, past, future	80-82
19	Planned future: 'X'	83-85
20	Apprehensions	86
21	Use of - want	87-90
22	Use of present and past participle constructions	91-96
23	Use of the suffix	97-101
24	Use o the absolutive participle; - conjunct	102-104
25	Continuative compound: 'v. r. 'keep on v ing'	105-109
26	Possessive case	110-112
27	Compulsion compounds : Use of	113-116
	Language structures expressing probability and compulsion	117-118
	Use of to express need or desire	119-121
28	Inceptive compound: 'v. r.	122-124
29	Permissive compound 'v. r.'	125-131
30	Conditionals: use of	132-135
31	Expressing wishes: use of	136-137
32	'X' / 'X'	138-142
	To be used to doing something
33	Verbs	143-165
	Verb agreement	143
	Intransitive and transitive verbs	144
	Causative - 1: Causative -2	144-155
	Compound verbs	156-159
	Conjunct verbs	159-161
	Sense verbs	162-163
	Sound verbs	163-164
	Nominal verbs	165
34	Passive voice	166-178
35	Nouns	179-192
	Gender	179-184
	Cases	185
	Number	186
	Declension of the noun	186-191
	Use of infinitive as noun	192
36	Pronouns	194-201
	Personal pronouns	194-195
	Definite pronouns; Indefinite pronouns	195-200
	Interrogative pronouns	200-203
	Relative pronouns	204-205
	Reflexive pronouns	205-207
37	Adjectives	208-226
	Pronominal adjectives	208-211
	Adjectives of quality	211-213
	Adjectives : base from, comparatives, superlatives	214-218
	Declinable adjectives; Indeclinable adjectives	218-220
	Adjectives of number: cardinals; ordinals	221-222
	Multiplicatives; Aggregatives; Fractions	223-224
	Distributive adjectives	225
	Indefinite quantity adjectives	225-226
	Participles used as adjectives	226
38	Adverbs	227-232
	Classification	227-229
	Adverbial usages	230-232
	Participles used as adverbs	232
39	Use of postpositions	233-246
	Use of	233
	Use of	233-237
	Use of	237-240
	Use of	240-242
	Use of	242-244
	Use of	244-246
40	Time expressions	247-253
	What time is it ? How long does it take	247-248
	Use of time expression etc.	249-253
41	Usages	254-281
	When else, what else etc.	254
	God knows	254
	Echo words	255
	Uses of	256
	Uses of	257-258
	Use of 'or else' 'Not even'	259
	Use of (only)	260
	Use of (also)	261
	Use of (purpose clause); (reason clause)	261
	(neither nor)	262
	Use of (either or)	263
	(although - concessive clause)	261
	(After all), (certainly)	264
	(not at all); (of course)	265
	Use of (without); (even if)	266
	(because of)	267
	(instead of);	268
	(much more than)	268
	conditional; (on the contrary)	269
	(introductory use); (somehow)	270
	(as soon as)	271
	(progressive)	271
	(exactly the same as before)	272
	'X' 'X' 'X' (not to speak of X)	72
	(for a long time);	273
	(for no reason or purpose)	273
	'X' 'X' - nothing but 'X'	274
	'X' - 'Y' (whether X or Y)	274
	'X'- 'Y' (whether X or Y)	274
	(hardly)	274
	(come what may);	275
	(Do what you like)	275
	(in spite of)	276
	(v. r.) + (v. r.) + (it almost happened)	276
	(in no time)	276
	Reduplicative expressions	277
	Use of	278
	Relative adverbs:	278
	Relative pronouns:	279
	Use of some abstract nouns and their adjectival forms	280
	(to be visible); (to be audible)	281
42	Compare and comprehend	282-294
	Use of stative verbs, change of state verbs	282
	Use of	282
	Use of	283
	Use of	284
	More on pres. Cont. tense	285
	Use of	287
	Use of	288
	Use of	290
	Use of	291
	Use of IPC. PPC	292
	Use of -emphatic	293
43	imperatives and exclamations	294
44	Punctuation	295
45	Antonyms	296-297
46	Synonyms	298-300
47	Sound words	301
48	Idioms	303-311
49	Proverbs	312-313
50	READINGS	Page
R-1	Pres. Simple	314
R-2	Imperative	317
R-3	Pres. Prog. tense	318
R-4	Pres. Prog. tense	319
R-5	Recapitulation	321
R-6	Past progressive	322
R-7	Possessive case	323
	Vocabulary: Blood relations	324
R-8	Time	325
R-9	Past tense	326
R-10	Past tense	328
R-11	Miscellaneous	330
R-12	{Press. Perf.}	331
R-13	{Press. Perf. Cont.}	332
R-14	Can, Could	333
R-15	Can, Could	334
R-16	Fut. tense	336
	Vocabulary: Planets, zodiac signs	337
R-17	Planned fut.	338
R-18	PPC; IPC	339
R-19	Cont. comp.	343
R-20	Prog. Comp.	346
R-21	Adjectives	348
R-22	Adjectives	350
R-23	Adjectives	352
R-24	Letter	354
R-25	Letter	356
R-26	Letter	358
	Recipes	361-362
	Vocabulary: fats, grains, species, cooking	362-365
51	EVERYDAY EXPRESSIONS
EE-1		366
EE-2		367
		367
EE-3	Hiring a rickshaw	368
	Appointment	368
EE-4	Hospitality	369
EE-5	Asking directions	370
		371
EE-6	1 Changing money	373
	2 Opening an account	374
	3 Encashing Traveller's cheques	375
EE-7	Consulting the doctor	376
	Vocabulary: body parts	377
	Buying medicine	378
	Buying medicine	379
EE-8	1 Buying envelopes, stamps	380
	2 Sending parcels abroad	381
EE-9	Buying vegetables	384
	Vocabulary: vegetables	385
EE-10	Buying fruit	386
	Vocabulary: Fruit	387
EE-11	Dialogue - marriage in India	388
EE-12	1 Railway station	391
	2 Railway -information	391
13	Weather	394
	Appendix - 1 Hindu calendar months, dates; mathematical calculations
	Appendix - 2 (Sandhi), (compound words)
	Glossary Of Grammar Terms
	Index - English
	Index - Hindi

Sample Pages