Rupert Snell

This book made learning Devanāgarī script much easier than I had anticipated. I had to go over the first few sets of consonants a few times before they really sunk in, but it clicked after that and I breezed through the rest of the book. It gives step by step instructions on how to write each character, and it shows you how the characters should look both in handwriting and in print. It also contains a thorough introduction giving historical and linguistic background. The book does touch show more briefly on a few issues of grammar, but it's really intended just to get you comfortable with the script so you can begin learning Hindi. I would have liked to have a bit more in the way of practice exercises (although there were quite a few), but aside from that, this book was exactly what I needed. show less

Hm... an OK but not great intro to Devanagari.

One of the aspects that I find annoying is the lack of IPA, which is by no means unique to this book. So far, I haven't found any intro to Hindi - or detailed reference grammars, for that matter - that consistently use IPA to make the phonetic values of the characters extremely clear. Instead it's the "like the 'o' in 'office'" style, which only works if all English speakers have the same vowel in the example word (but we don't).

If it interests show more you, there's a lot of introductory material on the sound inventory of Hindi and the history of words (which words are inherited, which are loanwords and if so, from which languages), etc. If you just want a basic intro to the script, though, you can safely skip that and go right to the chapters on the consonants and vowels.

My favorite part of this book is that the last section is a collection of handwritten Hindi to help you get acquainted with it, both to learn to write nicely yourself and to recognize other people's writing. More language books should include this! show less

Have to start with a warning: This 3 CD program is, basically, old "TY Speak Hindi with Confidence" shortened from 3 CDs to two, plus a CD3 of new conversations, which, although good, are more for listening practice, as opposed to first two CDs, where a lot of explaining of structures and grammar is happening.

Still, it's a really good program. On his Hindi Urdu Flagship page the author recommends to use it not just as a stand-alone course, but together with his other books (also published by show more TY, but get the old editions, they're the same when it comes to contents, and better, when it comes to the price). I have to agree that having a book that gives more grammar and usage explanation is not a bad idea. But it is also possible to use this course only, and learn a lot from it.

What is enjoyable about this book is, that it's a story. Each lesson follows the dealings of 4 people, and the listener gets to see how their relationship progresses. It is more fun this way, and a more engaging storyline can keep the interest up.

Use the booklet only when listening to the dialog for a few times still leaves bits you don't understand. It's better to go through vocab tracks a few times until you remember most of the words, and listen to dialog until you get it from ear only, rather than use the course just for a scripted listening practice. Figuring it out on your own is what this course is for, if you just want to have written dialogs with audio, you'll do better getting some other book.

Audible has the booklet for download, if you want to get a preview. show less

suleakh