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Suggestions

Do you have any suggestions for the site?

What kind of content would you like to see on this site?

For instance, would you like to see tutorials, exercises, more audio, etc.?

11 replies on “Suggestions”

Hi David,

Great work on this site. I’ve been following a few Hindi resources trying to learn (similar situation to you, except I’m not married to my rajkumari). The best I’ve found so far was a free PDF – Modern Hindi Grammar, though that has way to many typos and errors to be a sole resource.

Your website has been a tremendous help (especially on the subject of causatives), and I’m very grateful for it.

As for suggestions, I’d say that some people might be turned off by the use of the default WordPress theme. That said, in return for all the free help you’ve offered myself and others, I’d be glad to offer you a free website design (I own a design company), if you’re interested of course.

At any rate, your lessons are great and I’m thankful for you putting them up.

Best wishes!
Andrei

Hi, Andrei –

Thanks again for your comments! Although Hindi is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world (according to the number of speakers), there is still a paucity of resources available online. That is why I decided to create this site. It’s grown slowly since its inception one year ago, but it now has an appreciable amount of information. I’m very happy that you’ve been able to use it. I think it’s great that you’re motivated to learn for the sake of your “rajkumari”; she will be an invaluable teacher. I agree that the default WordPress theme is not very attractive. Originally, this site was a Joomla site. I had significant problems with upgrading Joomla, so I recently migrated to WordPress, and even created a theme; unfortunately, the theme was not compatible with Internet Explorer, so I abandoned it and simply installed the default theme. I’m sure you can sympathize with my frustrations with IE, since you’re a web designer. 🙂 I would like to accept your offer of a website design – that would be a significant contribution to this site, and I would greatly appreciate it! You’re welcome to correspond with me via e-mail (my address is on the Contacts page). Thank you very much!

What do you think of a “Confusing word groups” sections? 

One of the biggest problems I’ve had with Hindi is the subtle differences between words that when simply translated end up identical in English. For example:

मगर, लेकिन, किंतु, फिर भी, बल्कि

All of these have been informally translated to me as ‘but’. I imagine it’s often a matter of origin and slang, but it would be nice to better understand when to appropriately use each of these. If you like the idea, I have a short list with a few more examples.

That’s a great suggestion. I also have thought about the same problem. Send your list to me – that would serve as a good starting point. I’ll think about this problem more this week and start a new page. Thanks!

Another idea might be a list of similar words, yet very, very different in meaning. A few examples:
planet = गृह – house = ग्रह;
business = उघम – anarchy = उधम
fruit = फल – flower = फूल, bridge = पुल
picture = चित्र – student = छात्र – friend = मित्र – umbrella = छाता – letter = पत्र

I too gathered a huge list of such word pairs. 🙂

Hi David,

Could you write an article on the various emphatic particles in Hindi? There’s तो, ही, and भी (and maybe others), but I’ve always had a hard time figuring out (a) when to use one over another and (b) how to properly translate them. I know you’ve already written an article for तो and ही, and a (coming soon) for भी, but they discuss the particles on their own, not in comparison to the others.

So, as an example: दिल तो पागल है. AFAIU, the तो is just for emphasis. So, could it be replaced with ही or भी? Or would that change the meaning of the sentence to “Only the heart is crazy” / “The heart is also crazy”? With sentences like these, if you want to emphasize a word, how would you go about deciding which particle to use? Do you run through each particle and see if it potentially alters the meaning of the sentence, then pick the one that doesn’t do that? Or does each particle come with some subtle modification other than just generic ’emphasis’?

And how would you translate a sentence that is being emphasized by different particles? For example: मेरा प्यार भी तू है / मेरा प्यार ही तू है / मेरा प्यार तो तू है. Do each of these translate to the same thing, or do the non-emphasizing meaning of the particles change the definition?

As you can see…very confused. 🙂

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