Over the course of the semester, I have learned that I really enjoy and appreciate structure in a language course. At the beginning of the semester I was lost, sort of floundering around as I tried to decide how I would like to go about learning Hindi. I had looked at the different resources available, but I realized that I could not simply jump into my coursework. When I tried to start with Mango, I was overwhelmed by unfamiliar characters, and realized that I was mimicking sounds that I heard and trying to memorize strands of syllables, rather than actually understanding what I was saying and why I was saying it. I encountered a different sort of problem when I evaluated which resources from the MRC I should use—one was a grammar book, but it was intermediate-level and I still needed to learn the alphabet (same with illustrated dictionaries).
Because of these obstacles and realizations, I began to understand that for me personally to succeed as a language learner, I needed more structure to my coursework. I bought a textbook and workbook, and used them to work through a lesson at a time. Having a set progression also facilitated my learning the alphabet, as the book introduced the different letters gradually, enabling me to better retain what I was learning and apply it to sentences and grammar.
In terms of cultural exploration, I think that watching different forms of media, particularly movies, helped to acclimate me to certain values and norms, as well as get me picking out phrases and grammatical structures I had learned. I think that seeing the places I’ll be travelling to, and seeing how people interact in them (even if the films are not nonfiction) was incredibly useful. Some things that I became more familiar with were formalities and titles, gender roles, foodways, travel etiquette, and stereotypes associated with certain cities. I think the most difficult part about learning from the movies was looking past their frequent use of English. It seems that English is becoming (or already was) a language associated with cultural capital in India—those who wish to sound sophisticated or cultured will use English over Hindi or more regional languages. Thus, Indian movies will sometimes use more English than Hindi in their scripts. Since I’m going to a rural part of India where “Hindi is the purest,” this has made it difficult for me as a language learner, since the films are giving me an automatic crutch to fall back on, rather than immersing me in the language I seek to learn.
Although I have faced setbacks, I have really enjoyed learning Hindi, especially learning to write the alphabet out. It is incredibly convenient that everything is phonetic in the language, and that there are few ambiguous spellings that do not match up with a word’s pronunciation (a sharp contrast to English!). I’ve actually found myself thinking in Hindi at times when I try to spell out words! I plan to continue in my workbook even though the course is over, as well as watching more films and listening to music in the language. One major outcome of my learning is that I have gained a new appreciation for Bollywood movies. This could be dangerous in terms of time management and expecting crowds to burst into song, but I think it will also give me great conversation starters for new acquaintances in India.
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