This week I had my first meeting with my new language partner, Abhi. He is from Gujarat, and speaks fluent Hindi as a second language. I actually find that encouraging, because, since he also learned Hindi as a second language, it removes the fear of potentially sounding silly by speaking in the language.
For our first meeting, we first reviewed briefly the grammar structures that I had studied from my textbook. These included the postposition "ka", adjective gender-number agreement, and pronouns.
Next we practiced reading by reading a textbook dialogue and then I asked questions and answered them in Hindi about the dialogue. I felt this was a helpful exercise, because Abhi helped me with pronunciation and also with understanding how to properly phrase and answer questions. We also discussed (in English) cultural things related to the dialogue. I also practiced reading the text on a 20 rupee note he had.
Next we practiced speaking, with simple Q&A's in Hindi about location, items in close proximity, etc. This was a very helpful exercise to help me understand how language is used in real life situations, as opposed to textbook dialogues.
For coming weeks, I plan to continue to study with my textbook and increase my conversational skills. Abhi is also going to find some short videos in Hindi and help me work through those.
Comments