Rules::
-In this thread, you can learn Hindi words easily and learn to pronounce them correctly as well!
-No one is allowed to post her except for the moderators and Harry Riddle (since this was his idea)
-If you want a lesson on anything, just PM any of the mods or Harry Riddle.
-Enjoy! And we hope you pick up alot of Hindi through this

Hindi Lesson 2

Hindi Lesson 3

Numbers (unk) [U pronounced like the u in 'Uncle']

Vowels

Order ::

Hindi - Pronounced - Written

A - Like 'A boy' - अ

Aa - Like 'Alligator' - आ

E - Like English letter E - इ

Ee - Extended E - ई

U - Like 'oo' in 'loom' - उ

Uu - Extended oo - ऊ

Ru - Like 'roo' in 'Kangaroo' - ऋ

A< - Like the letter 'A' - ए

A> - Like 'Aii' - ऐ

O - Like the letter 'O' - ओ

Ou - Like 'Ouu' - औ

Amm - Like 'Um' in 'Umbrella' - click

Aha - Like 'Aha' - click

Hindi Lesson
Basic Writing

We'll start with a few consonants - ' h, n, d, m, r, k':


We'll start with the vowel marks:
(I hope you remember, that every consonant comes with an "A")
ा
A
That's the vowel "A" - a straight vertical line -, usually pronounced a bit longer - "AA". (the dashed little circle left of it isn't written at all, nor it is some kind of letter or character, it's there just to show that this letter cannot stand alone, and left to it should be another letter)हाि
IThat's the short "i", pronounced as the i in "hit". The most important thing about it, you should certainly know, is that it's written before a consonant, but read after it!हिी
IThat's the long version of the "i" (ee), pronounced as the English "ee" in "see". It's written after the consonant.हीो
OO as in "domain". Not the same as the usual English O, which sounds like "ou".होौ
AUAU (what is actually "O", but spelled like that to differ from the O, you see above) is pronounced almost like O, but it's a bit closed sound and a bit longer...हौ
ु
UThat's LONG U, as in "coooool"...हु
ू
UThat's the SHORT U as in "look".हू
े
EThis E is pronounced as in the English word "hElm". हे
ै
AIThat's also an E. It's related to the E in the same way as AU is to O. So it's E, but a bit closed sound...है

An important thing, before we continue. A dot over a letter nasalizes it. Let's have a look at that "dot": ं
That letter (a dot) put over a letter nasalizes it (gives it an -n or -ng sound). For example if we have dot over NO, we'll pronounce that as "NO~" (non) - exactly the same as the French word for "no". नो -> नों (no -> no~). In the lessons I note the nasalized letter as ~
हिंदी - At last! We can write "HINDI". Now let's have a closer look.
है - "hai". Means "is".
हैं - "hai~" (hain), meaning 'are'.
मैं - "mai~" = I

Next come the Detached forms of the Vowels:
First, a word about them. They're used after a vowel or at the beginning of a word, which starts witha vowel. They have exactly the same pronounciation as their cousins - the vowel marks:
अ (A )That's the sound, which is equivalent of the "inherited a", I told you about - which comes after every consonant, if there is not other vowel...
आ (AA) Equivalent of ा - pronounce it the same way
इ (I) Same as the short i vowel mark.
ई (I) Same as the long i vowel mark.
ओ (O) Same as the O vowel mark.
औ (AU) Same as AU vowel mark.
ऊ (U) Same as long U vowel mark.
उ (U)Same as short U vowel mark.
ए (E)Same as E vowel mark.
ऐ (AI)Same as AI vowel mark.
As I told you those sounds are pronounced exactly the same way as the vowel marks, so no need to explain here. I'll just give you some examples:
एक - "ek" = one
उन्नीस - "unnis" = nineteen
आप - "aap" = you
उनका - "unka" = Their
अब - "ab" = now
आंख - "aankh" = eye
अच्छ - "accha" = good
और - "aur" = and
भाई - "bhai" = brother
Don't bother about the letters you don't know, we'll learn them in short. The more important thing is that you should recognize and see the detached vowels. Now I'll continue with comparatively a full list of Hindi consonants. Learning them you make you able to read in Hindi. Of course as I said in the beginning there exist many combinations of letters etc, but howevery they don't appear so often. For convenience I'll show the consonants in groups.

Hindi Lesson


Basic Writing
contd..
These are the hindi alphabets..the english words above them are for pronunciation..please pronounce them as they are pronounced and not spelt..like say Y as in Yemen and not "why"..or k as in kitchen and not "kay"

THE HALF CONSONANTS:

I told you that every consonant comes with the vowel "a" with it. So when you see "SM" you should read this as "SAM". But what if you want to say something that begins with "SM", not "SAM". You cannot write such thing in Hindi you may think, but that's not so. For such occasions, where one want to mute the inherited A-vowel, there exist a special mark called "virama". It's put below the letter and if you see a letter with such mark you don't have to pronounce "A" after it. Let us see how that virama-thing looks like:
टम = T + M = TAM
ट्म = T + virama + M = TM
You see the small mark under the T? I bet you do! Well, that's the virama, it mutes the A, so we pronounce "TM", not "TAM". However as much as useful it may be, it's not used that much! Why? Almost all consonants in Hindi have their "HALF CONSONANT" equivalent, so it's not necessary to write the virama, but instead of this one has to write the corresponding halfconsonant. Half consonant are extremely easy to notice, since they look like the left half of a consonant. Lemme give you some examples:
सस = S + S = SAS
सक = S + K = SAK
स्स = Half S + S = SS
स्क = Half S + K = SK
Easy, huh?
By the way, some half letter do combine with the next consonant and change shape. I'll give you some of the most used (i.e. those which you may encounter more often):
Half Letter + N:
(again: on some browsers you won't see the proper combinations, but consonant + virama + n)
ब् + न = ब्न
ह् + न = ह्न
ग् + न = ग्न
द् + न = द्न
प् + न = प्न
र् + न = र्न * that needs an extended explanation, see below
क् + न = क्न
त् + न = त्न
म् + न = म्न
व् + न = व्न
स् + न = स्न
Half Letter + R:
ब् + र = ब्र
ह् + र = ह्र
ग् + र = ग्र
द् + र = द्र
ज् + र = ज्र
ड् + र = ड्र
प् + र = प्र
र् + र = र्र * that needs an extended explanation, see below
क् + र = क्र
त् + र = त्र
च् + र = च्र
ट् + र = ट्र
म् + र = न्र
न् + र = न्र
व् + र = व्र
ल् + र = ल्र
स् + र = स्र
य् + र = य्र
Note HOW similar the "half letter + N" and "half letter + R" are. There is only one little difference, something like e little hook on the N version.
HALF R + Consonant:
The half R, followed of course by consonant, is showed by a mark over the second consonants. This mark looks the same as the mark which differentiate the short i detached vowel from the long detached vowel i. Remember if you see that mark read it as R, but before the consonant it modifies. Some examples:
र्ह, र्स, र्म, र्न, र्ज, र्द, र्ट, र्त That letters should be read, according to their order: RH, RS, RM, RN, RJ, RD, RT, RT'

Examples

पाकिस्तान = Pakistan
ताजमहल = Tajmahal
केनेडी = Kennedy
बग़दाद = Baghdad
क्रिकेट = Cricket
वेबगाइड = Webguide
इंटरनेट = Internet
माइक्रोसॉफ़्ट = Microsoft
इराक़ = Iraq
सद्दाम हुसैन = Saddam Husein
ग़ज़ा = Gaza
इसराइल = Izrael
इंडोनेशिया = Indonesia
मेडागास्कर = Madagascar
श्रीलंका = ShriLanka
ईरान = Iran
कॉलिन पॉवेल = Colin Powel
अल्जीरिया = Algeriya
बुश = Bush (yeah, the president of the USA)
अमरीका = America
यूरोप = Europe
तुर्की = Turkey
फ़्रेंच = French
मोनिका = Monika
यूरो = Euro
कोरिया = Korea

Basic Hindi Words



हाँ = YES ( haa~ - note the nasal "n")
नहीं = NO ( nahi~ - note the nasal "n")
जी हाँ = YES (or "Yes, sir"... Ji Haa~)
जी नहीं = NO (or "No, sir"... Ji Nahi~)
हाँ जी = YES (or "Yes, sir"... Haa~ Ji)
नहीं जी = NO (or "No, sir"... Nahi~ Ji)
जी = YES (kinda the English "yeah" or "yep")
जी = Yes? Pardon me? What? What do you mean? etc...
नमस्ते = Hello! OR Goodbye! ( Namaste )
धन्यवाद = Thank you. ( Dhanyavaad)
शुक्रिया = Thank you. ( Shukriyaa)
आप कहां से हैं? = Where are you from? ( Aap kahaa~ se hain? )
* Note that ~ is used to show nasal sound, i.e. nasalied a. I'll use always that, when showing nasalied

PRONOUNS

मैं =I (main,mai~)
हम = We (ham)
तु = You (tu)
आप = You (aap) (plural)
तुम = You (tum)
वे = They/These (veh) (plural)
वह = He/She/It/That (voh/vah)
मेरा = My (mera)
हमारा = Our (hamara)
तेरा = Your (tera)
आपका = Your (aapka) (plural)
तुम्हारा = Your (tumhara)
उनका = Their (unka) (plural)
उसका = His (uska)
यह = This ( yeh / yah )
वह = That ( woh / wah )
ये = These ( ye )
वे = Those ( ve )
है = is (hai)
उसका नाम Peter है = His name is Peter. (Uska naam Peter hai.)
यह पानी है = This is water. ( Yah pani hai. )
यह घर है = This is a house. (Yeh ghar hai. )

GENDERS

Hindi has just two - masculine and feminine. There isn't really any reliable rule of what types of words are masculine and what feminine. However you can easily get the gender of a word by looking at it's ending. Most hindi words end in a vowel! If a word ends in a it is masculine. If a word ends in i (actually long i - ee) it is feminine. When we learn the adjectives, how to conjugate verbs etc, you'll see that those -a and -i ending are very important! So, please remember that well:
-a (ा) - general mark of masculine words (singular!) - nouns, adjectives, verbs
-i (ी) - general mark of feminine words (even both - singular and plural) - nouns, adjectives, verbs
Many Hindi masculine words (ending in -a of course can be easily turned into feminine ones by simply replacing the -a ending with -i! Let's show you some example to clear all what I said up:
लडका (ladka) = boy,
लडकी (ladki) = girl (Many hindi speakers would pronounce the 'd' in lardka/ladki as "R", so don't wonder if you see somebody write in irc-chats "larka" or "larki"...)
बिल्ला(billa) = tomcat,
बिल्ली (billi) = cat, *****cat
Masculine Words, ending in -a:
कमरा (kamra) = room
केला (kela) = banana
तारा (tara) = star
हवा (hava) = wind

Feminine Words ending in -i (-ee):
पानी (pani) = water
चीनी (chini) = sugar
नकडी (makdi /makri/) = spider
पक्षी (pakshi) = bird

Words ending in consonant:
डोस्त (dost) = friend (Masculine)
किताब (kitab) = book (Feminine)
औरत (aurat) = woman (Feminine :-)
Words ending in a vowel different from -a or -i:
गुरु (guru) = teacher

To the general rule of the -a and -i ending there exist some exceptions, that is, there exist some masculine words, which end in -i. Such word is for example the word for "man" (and what more masculine than that, lol)
admi: आदमि (aadmi) = man

VERBS

Every hindi verb ends in -na! Remember this! That's the main form of the verb, i.e. the infinitive.
-ना (-na) is the verb ending in the infinitive form of all verbs in Hindi
Some verbs:
खाना (khana) = to eat
पीना (pina) = to drink
जाना (jana) = to go
आना (aana) = to come
करना (karna) = to do (remember that verb, it's used in many other "compound" verb forms...)
देना (dena) = to give
लेना (lena) = to take
लिखना (likhna) = to write
पढना (padhna) = to read
समझना (samajhna) = to understand
समझाना (samjhaana) = to explain (i.e. to make someone understand)
सीखना (sikhna) = to learn

To get the root of the verb you have to remove the -na ending. Once you've done that, you can conjugate the verbs.
You remember the rule about words ending in -a/-i, right? So here is the moment to talk about plural. In plurar the masculine -a ending becomes -e and the feminine -i ending remains -i (or becomes -i~). So here it is once more, specially for you:
-a (ा) - general mark of masculine words (singular!) - MASC. SG.
-e (े) - general mark of masculine words (plural!) - MASC. PL.
-i (ी) - general mark of feminine words (even both - singular and plural) - FEM. SG. and FEM. PL. (sometimes for pl - -in /-i~/ though!)
Now back to verbs:
Add "ता" (ta) to verb-root for masculine singular and "ते" (te) for masculine plurar. Add "ती" (ti) for feminine singular and plurar.

Examples:
खाता (khata) = eat
पीता (pita) = drink
etc... etc... *Note that those are conjugated verbs, but not ready to use, i.e. you cannot say "Mai~ khata", you need to use the copula "to be", so please be a bit patient, and wait until i've explained the most important verb in Hindi, the verb "to be":
The verb "TO BE" (Hona - होना)
मैं हुं (mai~ hu~) = I am
तु है (tu hai) = You (intimate) are
तुम हो (tum ho) = You are
वह है (voh hai) = He/She/It/That is

हम हैं (ham hai~) = We are
आप हैं (aap hai~) = You are
वे हैं (ve hai~) = They are
Let's give you a pattern:
Verb root + TA / TE / TI + Conjugated corresponding form of "Hona" (to be) = Present Imperfect Tense
Some examples:
मैं खाता हुं (mai~ khata hu~) = I eat.
लडका खाता है (larka khata hai) = The (A) boy eats. (Oh, I forgot to mention it anywhere :/ - Hindi does not have articles!)
लडकी खाती है (larki khati hai) = The (A) girl eats.
आप पीते हैं (aap pite hai~) = You (polite sg) eat OR You (plural) eat.
मैं पानी पीता हुं (mai~ pani pita hu~) = I drink water.
तुम पानी पीते हो (tum pani pite ho) = You drink water. NB! "TUM", what's the most used word for "you" is actually in Plural! So whenever you use it conjugate the verb for plural!
Here another, a bit "funny" example:
मैं सिगरेट पीता हुं (mai~ sigaret pita hu~). I smoke a cigarette... The literal meaning of the sentence is "I drink a cigarette.", but every language has its oddities and peculiarities

I learned writing vowels & constanants at hindi lessons & i still dont even know the stuff... so hard to remember *faints*

don't worry if there's any problem then i can help you out.

Wow that a lot of stuff to remember!!

To learn hindi you can always start up with small words..this way it would help better