Challenges in Learning Hindi

Ever since I was in the third grade the subject I have dreaded most has been Hindi. Coming from a South Indian background didnt really help my cause. As the years went by I grew to despise Hindi further. The Hindi teacher would come to the class and start Mere kehne ka yeh tatparya hain kii which can be translated as the significance of what I am saying is and I knew the rest would be like facing a bouncer from a fast bowler in cricket where everything just sails past over my head. First of all I would commit grammatical blunders as the language had a funny way of distinguishing genders. Secondly reading Hindi in class had always been a nightmare, as I would make elementary errors like lakdi for ladki and thus change a girl to a stick. I am sure this gave nightmares to my teacher too. Another reason for me not improving my reading skills was the lack of interesting reading material in the course. Though in the ninth and tenth grade there were a few good short stories by Premchand and Gulshan Nanda. Finally while writing in Hindi I found myself wanting for ideas and was not able to express myself freely due to my limited vocabulary. Since I am from Mumbai l do converse in Hindi but this is different, as grammar has no significance here and there is quite a lot of slang that is used which doesnt help much either. All in all I am quite relieved that I do not have to learn Hindi anymore.

References

• Hindustan Times
• Outlook India
• BBC Hindi
• The Times of India
• India Today
• Deshbandhu Hindi Newspaper
• Navbharat Times
• Loksatta