Language Partner Meeting #1
Goal for the semester: My goal for this semester is achieve the “elementary” level of Hindi, i.e. read, write, and speak.
Date: September 16, 2012
Goal for the day: Get familiar with the Hindi alphabets
I met with my language partner Sanya Hirani today for the first time. For the first half of the meeting, she repeated the alphabets for me and I recorded her. The Hindi alphabet is divided into vowels, consonants and matras. There are a total of 33 consonants and 12 vowels. The matras are the same as the vowels, however, unlike the vowels; they can be combined with the consonants to change the pronunciation. For example, the consonant pa added with the matra sound aa becomes paa.
In the second half of our meeting, Sanya connected consonants and matras and pronounced the words so I could get a better idea. This drifted into a cultural conversation (the best part according to me!). We started talking about food and how the pronounce for the exact same meals are different in Hindi and Gujarati.
Overall, my first day with my language partner was very helpful. In my schedule, I dedicated 2 weeks to learning the alphabet but I am going to have to extend that to three to ensure that I get the base of the language right.
Comments
I hope that, as you work on the alphabet, you're also working on learning how to read, write, and speak simple things like greetings, farewells, introductions. I can understand that it will take some time to learn the alphabet correctly, but you must also be working on other things. Working on words and phrases should also help you master the alphabet.