Do You Mind Not Knowing What is Going On?

Show card for my Art in India exhibition.

A Nepali Indian friend asked if it bothers me ”when people just speak in Hindi?” She continued, “I think it would drive me nuts if everyone around me was talking and I couldn’t understand.” This is a good question…

The simple answer is “no, it has not bothered me yet.” I really enjoy observing and using these times to learn and listen. Every time I have wanted to understand more or need clarification I always ask.

So why does it not bother me? Haha probably because I am a bit socially awkward to begin with. I don’t mind observing nor do I mind that isolated feeling while in a large group, in fact I really enjoy it. I love people but am fairly introverted. That “alone in a crowd feel” can be incredibly nice…though I don’t really feel alone with my Indian friends. Most of the time I can pick up enough….though the times I am lost are nice too. Sometimes I just don’t talk even when I do know what’s going on. I suppose it’s less awkward to have the language “barrier” as an excuse.

The most important reason I don’t mind is the answer to the question “what is the best way to learn a language?” To go to the country…unfortunately I tend to do things backwards. I go to the country then a month after returning home decide to commit to learning the language. Spending time with people speaking the language you are trying to learn is really the only way to pick up a language…

The other friend in the car joined in and stated “they don’t do it on purpose, it’s just habit.” We continued the discussion for a bit longer (and by we I mean I continued to ponder over the question in my head…I will share my ponderings in future posts.)

I nodded in agreement as we continued to sing along to Bollywood music and drove off.

Dubbed Hindi Mai

Yesterday a coworker said that when she was learning French she watched The Nightmare Before Christmas in French with subtitles 10 times and then once without subtitles to prepare for her listening exam.

This idea sounds absolutely genius to me. In the beginning of my Hindi learning I watched Aladdin dubbed in Hindi. I couldn’t understand the words but it was enjoyable and I’m sure it was still good for learning. 

Why Aladdin?

That’s simple. It’s my favorite movie and there was a time in my life where I could quote every word from begging to end including songs (on my own, the movie didn't even need to be playing).

I have heard, though I don't strictly follow this rule, that you should not watch movies with subtitles to learn a language. Instead you should only watch movies that you can understand without the subtitles as it trains your brain differently. Left vs right brain language learning business.

Whether this is true or not, I am not sure.

I am sure, however, that watching my favorite kid movie in Hindi will not hurt anything and will be a great opportunity to invite friends over and have a movie party. Two part of course. one in English and the other in Hindi.

Oh, by-the-way I bookmark everything on Pinterest so here is the link to the movie. Just click the image and it will take you to the site where I found my Aladdin dubbed in Hindi. I would absolutely love to track down the actual DVD. If anyone finds it for sale online for a reasonable price, please let me know...

Listening Practice Playlist

I am not going to go into detail in this post about the importance of listening practice as I am sure you are aware of why any language learner needs this specific practice.

Great Playlist with Hindi-Urdu speakers

Some other great listening resources include Bollywood songs and movies as well as spending time with native Hindi speakers.

What are your favorite listening resources?

To Me Hindi Gibberish Is

Poster from a Train Station in India

Mujhe hindi gibberish hai.
To me Hindi gibberish is.

This sentence is pretty simple to translate when written; however, when people talk, translating fast enough to make sense out of Hindi is too much difficult different at different times (**Wink*Wink** at Indian English). I do of course love the challenge and I get excited when I pick up entire phrases or even portions of a conversation. Maybe this excitement is a little more than normal but I hide it well with a facade of shyness.

The other night I went out with mere dosten after playing cricket (ohh yes, I will write a post on cricket). It was great...and as you know I am used to not knowing what is going on all the time and simply listening and trying to figure things out. This outing drove me absolutely bonkers and was a lot of fun. It was fun because I could tell when they were talking (and more importantly what they were saying) about the girls that a couple of the guys liked. ahh mere hindusthani dosten bahut cute hai (aww My Indian friends are too cute).

The confusing part of the conversation came when the guys switched back and fourth between topics. "veh bahut moushkil hai." You mean to say "he/she/it/that/the big difficult is" is what? "she is hard?" No, you have a problem? no ...ugh...wait...the PhD is hard...who? Where did that come from?

Main Hindi aur hindusthani log nahin samajti hoon (Literally "I Hindi and Indian people no understand am existing"). See what I mean. Gibberish is!

As you can see Hindi learning pagal hai...Learning Hindi is crazy...aur bahut thoda thoda fun!

If this isn't confusing enough just wait till I tell you about texting in my next post. 

Never-Ending Hindi Resource List

In a previous post responding to those of you asking how I am learning Hindi. I said that I use as many resources as I can and promised to share a list.

I learned about keeping "never ending resumes" in college. It's the idea that you build a resume that grows as you do. This list is the same way. I will continue to add resources as I find, discover and use them.

Enjoy the resource list below. I will post some details about these in future posts. If you have specific questions, please ask. 

Conversational
Learn Hindi on FB (Anil Mahatho)  
Pimsleur helps a lot with sentence order but only for a small portion of sentences 
Chatting and texting

Grammar
Learning-Hindi.com
Anil Mahato on YouTube
Hindi U on YouTube

Vocabularay
Crazi Lassi on You Tube
MyLanguages.org 
hinkhoj.com

Speaking
Spending time with Hindi speaking friends
Creating YouTube videos in Hindi "Black Girl Speaking Hindi"
Mango - log on through a public or University library database list

listening
Hindi U on YouTube 
Bollywood Movies and Songs
Guli Guli Sim Sim - Sesamie Street
Shaka Laka Boom Boom - Kids show

Writing
Flashcards
Writing in the script for my typed notes from Learning-Hindi.com
      I will post a pdf file of my notes when it is finished

TenguGo Hindi App is the best I've found for the alphabet 

Beelingual - this app allows you to select texts and has some great tools for studying a variety of reading topics

Reading
Kids Stories
Alphabet phone App - My favorite is TenguGo Hindi
looking at Hindi meems on Google+ and then using the translator to check and learn the words I don't know
Mango
Hindi Bible
Learning-Hindi.com has some great reading lessons

Beelingual - this app allows you to select texts and has some great tools for studying a variety of reading topics

Thinking
Pimsleur Lessons
Mango
HindiPod101 helps with all areas
Doulingo it's out!! I just finished the tree and am writing a review!

Misc.
Flashcards
Painting using Hindi (Helps things stick) 
Sign Language (mathcing signs or actions to words will help with recall)

http://taj.chass.ncsu.edu/urdu/

A friend just sent this site to me. I will tellyou more in the future 

I will be sure to make a list of the Best Places to Start and to my Favorite Resources. I will continue to update this list as I find more resources I find helpful and I will continue to edit and revise...this post is a work in progress :)

What are some of your favorite language learning resources?

How I Am learning Hindi and The Brain

My Indian Culture Class and a Volunteer/Friend...More about my students

People all over the web and in real life have been asking how I am learning Hindi and honestly the answer is that I am using as many resources and techniques as I possibly can. There are many arguments for the best method and honestly I think that many of these arguments are valid; however, none are complete. I believe that more than one tool is necessary for learning a language.

Your brain doesn't function on one level but many. Learning a language is not learning one skill but many at the same time. The more connections we make the more we will retain.

Teaching language arts to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities has helped me to see the varied ways that the brain learns. Though my students brains work differently than many of us, it's almost easier to understand and more plain to see these layers.

Oversimplified, the more teaching styles you can combine into one class the more brain activity will take place creating more connections which means more will be retained and recalled later because of these connections.

This is especially true with language. It is is fascinating to see the differences between how reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills are developed. These four areas are developed at different speeds and through different types of practice. They are also different for different people.

Another critical aspect to language learning is being able to think, both on the subconscious level and the more structured grammatical level. Both of these are essential to understanding a new word order and sentence structure and therefore language.

Pimsleur argues that language learning in schools is messed up because we focus so much on grammar and though I 100% agree that the way kids naturally learn is ideal and Pimsleur was onto something huge with this idea, I also realize that the world a baby grows up in is different than the world an adult lives in. That being said I am using as many children's resources for learning Hindi as I can and surrounding myself with the beautiful language while using other more traditional adult language learning resources at the same time.

I suppose this is enough for one post. I will list the resources here soon and plan to share specifics about individual ones later...