Let’s Celebrate Navratri! Posted by Rachael on Oct 3, 2016
नवरात्रि की बहुत शुभकामनाएँ (Many good wishes on Navratri)! Hindu communities in South Asia and beyond are now celebrating Navratri, a festival whose name is made up of two parts: नव: A Sanskrit prefix meaning “nine” (in Hindi: नौ) रात्रि: A Sanskrit word meaning “night” (in Hindi: रात, fem. noun) This is an extremely apt…
Bargaining Basics and Shopping in India Posted by Nitya on Sep 28, 2016
Whether you are shopping for gold ornaments at the jewelers, picking vegetables in an open-air market, or buying clothes in small or large shops, bargaining is an integral part of the Indian shopping experience. Indians love to bargain. And shopkeepers or store salesmen love to push back. To a newcomer to India, shopping can be…
3 Romantic Bollywood Films Hindi Lovers Can’t Miss Posted by Rachael on Sep 26, 2016
This week, we’ll talk about some famous Bollywood films that feature love in major ways so we can learn how to express this vital emotion in Hindi! Umrao Jaan (1981) उमराव जान This classic film stars the bombshell Rekha or रेखा (yes, she’s one of those actresses who only needs one name to go by)…
Get Your Hindi On Posted by Nitya on Sep 21, 2016
An Introduction, and Your First Conversation “Are you Hindi?” “Do you speak Hindu?” Newly emigrated Indians have often reported fielding these questions from flummoxed Westerners. After all, it’s not hard to confuse the similar-sounding names for the language, Hindi, and the religion, Hindu. In recent times, however, Hindi has been immensely popularized through India’s…
Conquering Hindi through Bollywood Music Posted by Rachael on Sep 19, 2016
This week, we’ll discuss a song from a movie mentioned in last week’s blog: Lagaan (in English: “tax” or “rent”). Listening to music in the target language is a fun and easy way to learn new words and phrases and will help you remember them longer. An added benefit of discussing this particular song (and all…
Learning Hindi through a Dangerously Addictive Show Posted by Rachael on Sep 12, 2016
नमस्ते सब लोग (Greetings, everyone)! मेरा नाम रेचल है (My name is Rachael). आजकल (these days), I’m a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, and I study modern Hindi-Urdu and Bengali literature. I became enamored with Hindi and Indian culture when I was 13 through watching Hindi films. Of course, I watched plenty…
Poem in Hindi – Jahil Mere Bane Posted by Nitin Kumar on Jul 31, 2016
Let me translate a nice Hindi poem for you. Hindi poems offers great variety of composition and grammatical structure. So it will be a great way to learn Hindi through reading comprehension of Hindi poems. In this poem, the poet is describing what a farmers think about themselves and how do they compare themselves with…