Pratap isn't the only one who writes postcards.

I got a postcard from my friend Aditya in Mumbai!


After 40 minutes, I had written out and looked up every word I could - and then had to turn to a friend for help reading and/or getting the meaning of the others. I need more patience - I get so frustrated when I can't read. But on the other hand, probably getting a taste of what iliteracy is like is a very useful thing.

The really cool part of this - other than getting a postcard from a foreign country, yay! - was that once someone told me what the words were, I could see how they knew. Once I knew what I was looking for, I could see it. Maybe that's dumb, but it feels like an improvement over _not_ being able to see it, at least. I did know quite a few words and was able to look up several more - v satisfying as well.

The transliteration is on the photo's Flickr page (with line breaks as they appear on the postcard), with much help from the glossary at the back of Snell and from Filmi Geek.

Oh! And the picture!

lyrics in Devanagari

I've run across Navin Kabra's Archive of Hindi Movie Songs site many times and never explored it. But today I finally poked around and discovered that the site has a ton of songs written out in Devanagari - and indexed in seven ways (including type of song - qawwalis, birthday, rain, etc.), which makes my inner library really happy. In honor of my recently watching Teesri Manzil, maybe I'll try to read O Haseenaa Zulfonwaalee during my lunch hour.

Read That Sign! round 2

After reading Ultrabrown's post on the Wagah Border and its delightful/baffling display of patriotism, I flipped through some pictures from my trip there in July 2006. Here's a sign that faces you as you enter the Indian side of the arena (that might not be quite the right term, but it's stepped seats full of cheering crowds, so it seems to fit).

I feel like I should be able to identify these words, but I can't quite do it. My guess is:
svarn jayantee dvaar
With the help of Word AnyWhere, maybe this is
gold ____ gate. Now if only I could figure out the _____.

typing in Devanagari

I found a post on the ePandit Hindi blog yesterday that appears to be a review of various systems for typing in Devanagari. I can't remotely read the post, and if someone would like to summarize it for me, I'd be grateful. But links know no linguistic bounds, so I was able to find Bahara, (which Filmi Geek had already told me about), HindiWriter, and Bhasha. I haven't had time to play with any of these, and I will be gob-smacked if any of them work on a Mac (and then I'll dance a merry jig).

I also thought I should let you know why I haven't been getting much Hindi done over the summer. My regular tutor was gone for the summer, studying in Jaipur, but I lined up a really good substitute. Or so I thought.

He may be a native speaker, but it turns out that he was really keen to use his English while in the US. He was also still feeling a little shy, and he was convinced that if he spoke in Hindi his low profile would be blown and throngs of screaming girls would ruin his vacation. And whenever I tried to crack the book, he insisted on turning it to this particular page, even though I'm only in chapter three....

Think writing your date's name in Devanagari is a show-stopper? Think twice.

This tale from Hindi student Katherine Russel Rich admittedly has little to do with learning Hindi but packs a wallop in just two pages. And it mentions her forthcoming book about her experiences spending a year in India studying, titled Unspeakable: A Story About India and Life in Other Words. Looks great.

Thanks to friend, journalist, and international woman of mystery and beauty Anubha for the story.

(D)evanagari U(nder the) I(nfluence)

I'd been craving a beer at my favorite bar for days, so when a friend said she'd be up for some french fries and a shirley temple before studying at the coffee shop, I couldn't resist. News flash: total lightweights should not have a drink before trying new vocabulary and writing in a not-entirely-learned script. The effects were even more wobbly than usual. After writing out all the masculine nouns, I browsed the chapter and realized cases were coming. And closed the book. Cases did me in in Latin back in my sophomore year of college, and while I am not going to let them win this time, today was definitely not the day to prove it.

Hic.

Oh, those pesky pronouns

Namaste, slackers! Normally I would hang my head in shame and join your ranks (I am very much of the "What do we want? Procrastination! When do we want it? Later!" school of thought), but believe it or not, this summer I took my Hindi learning kit with me on my vacation and actually did some work. No one was more surprised than me, I can tell you that much. My enthusiasm waned somewhat when I got to oblique and direct cases, but still, I'm about halfway through Unit 3 now and able to tell you that मेरी किताबें मेज़ पर हैं and that मैं घर में हूँ and surely that is all that matters.

I do have a question, though. I understand about aap-tum-tu and the differences between them, but while my book tells me that main is I and hum is we, I've also seen hum used to mean I (eg. in Hum Tum), so ... what's up with that? Is hum-main kind of like aap-tum? Can anyone explain? बहुत शुक्रिया!