Tag Archives: Hindi vocabulary
Conversational Hindi: Common Questions and Answers (Part 2) Posted by Rachael on May 24, 2018
This blog is the second part to my first blog on this topic. As a student of Hindi myself, I would sometimes become frustrated with the sheer volume of “formal Hindi” I was being taught. Of course, this Hindi was overly formal and outdated, but I wasn’t being told that––instead, this Hindi was described as…
Levels of Language: Register in Hindi, Part 3 Posted by Rachael on Dec 29, 2017
In today’s post, I’ll be discussing the newest transformation that Hindi has undertaken: Hinglish. This term refers to a combination of Hindi and English vocabulary, syntax and, sometimes, grammar and idiom. It can refer to speech that includes a vast majority of English and a minority of Hindi or vice versa. But, for the purposes…
Levels of Language: Register in Hindi, Part 1 Posted by Rachael on Dec 17, 2017
“Register” simply refers to the various levels of speech that exist in any language––such as formal, informal/colloquial, slang, etc. Just as we have different registers in English, like the formal language you would use in a research paper or the slang terms you use when talking to a close friend, there are different registers in…
Mushrooming Neighborhoods Posted by Nitya on Jul 20, 2017
I’m currently traveling in India and my work brings me to a relatively newer sprawl of the Bengaluru city (shahar). This area , (yeh jagah) which has mushroomed (panapaa hai) as a response to the IT industry, is peppered with paying guest accommodations. Every morning (har subah) a veritable ocean of young professionals in the IT…
The Intoxication of Music (Sangeet ka Nashaa) Posted by Rachael on Jan 3, 2017
First of all, I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year/नया साल मुबारक हो (Nayaa Saal Mubaarak ho)! Over the past four months, it has been my pleasure to share with you my musings about Hindi language and culture, and I’m extremely grateful that you’ve joined me on this journey. I hope you’ve enjoyed…
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…
Short Story in Hindi – The Monkey and the Crocodile Posted by Nitin Kumar on Mar 30, 2016
Today, I will present you a fable from a very famous series of animal fables from ancient India which is called Panchatantra (पञ्चतन्त्र – Five Principles). These stories were written in 200 B.C. and used to teach social moral to young minds of the nobal class of that time. The story of Panchtantra has been…