I would like to learn Hindi, but unfortunately I think Clozemaster is a bit over my head. I have used Clozemaster successfully in languages that I already knew some of, but I don’t find it sufficient for starting for nothing.
Does anyone have any recommendations of where to start? I looked at Duolingo’s Hindi course but I find it has some serious deficiencies that aren’t to my knowledge being addressed at all.
I am interested in learning Devanagari and especially making sure I learn pronunciation well, and also getting some basics of grammar and vocabulary to where I can dive into Clozemaster with some familiarity with the basics.
I would use Beginner’s Hindi Script and at least the first 5 chapters of Complete Hindi. Both books by Rupert Snell. Duolingo isn’t bad as a supplementary resource.
For a free resource, these textbooks are very good. A little dated but the language hasn’t really changed:
I am absolutely not an expert! I’m 7 months into Hindi, which is my first language since high school. That said, there’s some great Hindi resources out there. I would like to claim that I am good enough to start on Clozemaster - I’m a whole month in! - so here are some of the things I did.
https://www.learning-hindi.com/. This is how I learned the alphabet, some words and phrases, basic tenses. It’s given to you in five-minute chunks with no pressure. There’s no tests or anything, so I just practiced writing the letters a bunch in a notebook. There are over 100 lessons, though sadly the project seems to have ended abruptly.
You can google hindi letters image to get a table for practicing. I found a nice calligraphy one but can’t remember exactly where.
https://omniglot.com/writing/hindi.htm has a bunch of resources, including letter shapes (and audio) and numbers to 100. (Warning! Some of the number words are a bit different than my mac dictionary. But I don’t know which is right, if either.) Hindi numbers make no sense.
Duolingo. You didn’t specify your concerns with it. One concern is that it’s only got maybe 800 words. That said, you can get a good background on simple sentences and word order with that. The “tips” on some of the first few lessons give some nice background and actual grammar, like noun case. I was really bummed that the tips dried up. And the gamification kept me coming back every day for six months (for free!) which is worth a lot.
Wiktionary. Once you learn how to type in Hindi (Happy to give you tips if you’re on a Mac.) you can type any Hindi word into en.wiktionary.com and get definitions, etymologies, synonyms and other useful stuff.
Google translate. Will translate whole phrases and sentences, not just words.
hindilanguage.info is basically a grammar book split into sections. Whole articles on particles, postpositions, comparative adjectives, and more.
Watching Bollywood movies on Netflix and listening to soundtracks on Spotify. Watching the same movie after 5 months helped show me how much I’ve learned, though it also showed how much more I need to learn.
Have a friend who’s good at Hindi to ask questions of.
I don’t have a good source for careful pronunciation. The Duolingo folks pronounce things differently from each other, and sometimes different from other sources I’ve heard. This may be a combination of dialects and the fact that Hindi is much more often a second language than a first.
So maybe someone here will say this is a terrible way to learn Hindi, but it HAS gotten me to the point where I feel comfortable on Clozemaster.
Good luck, and I’d be happy to hear resources others have found.