|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
Sections |
Hindi StudiesWelcome to Hindi studies at the National University of Singapore. Hindi is not only one of India’s national languages but is spoken by over five hundred million people in India and throughout the world. In 2008 the National University of Singapore established a Hindi program and the first batch of students took a level one Hindi module. A second level Hindi module was also taught in the second semester of AY 2008-2009. It is anticipated that in academic year 2009-10 in each semester Hindi 1 and Hindi 2 will be offered and in the second semester a Hindi 3 module will also be available.
If you would like to know more about Hindi you might like to listen to an audio Introduction to Hindi which is an audio file (mp3 format about 35 minutes, 13 MB) of an introduction to Hindi which I gave at the CAE in Melbourne in 2006. It gives an overview of how I came to learn Hindi, the relationship between Hindi and English and an outline of why learning the script can be fun. Learn Hindi script SoftwareFor students of the Hindi modules at NUS, or anybody really, Beginning Hindi 1 is a windows based software package I developed to help people learn Hindi Script. It is in a zip file, all you need to do is download it (its about 17MB), unzip it somewhere on your computer, say on the desktop, and then open the folder and click on the file called BeginningHindi1.exe. Sorry, I never learned how to write software for Macs, and I think it won't work on them, and I have yet to explore Vista, and have no idea if it works on that either. Please note that like much software, you use it at your own risk and I am sorry I can't help you getting it to work on your computer. Staff IntroductionMy name is Dr Peter Gerard Friedlander and I am the convenor for Hindi language at NUS. You might be interested in hearing how I learned Hindi, before thinking of how it would be to learn Hindi with me at NUS. If you are, then read on. I vividly remember from my first trip to India, back in 1977, finding it frustrating that I couldn't talk to most of the people that I met. So I decided to learn an Indian language, and as I was travelling in North India I decided to learn Hindi. To begin with I bought a copy of Teach Yourself Hindi by Mohini Rao and would sit with people in teashops and hotels trying to get them to go through the text with me. I learned a lot that way, but not enough. In Varanasi in a teashop one day I was telling a man about my interest in learning Hindi and he offered to teach me. I then spent three months having a daily evening tutorial with Krishna Mohan Singh and in the day practicing what I had learned the day before with the family I was living with. By the end of the three months I had a fair smattering of spoken Hindi and was able to get by whilst living in a village in Madhya Pradesh where hardly anybody knew any English. Following this initial stay in Benares I remained most of the time in India until 1982 when I went back to the UK and then spent from 1983 to 1991 studying Hindi and South Asian Literature and Religion at the School of Oriental and African Studies, which is a part of London University. From 1997 to 2008 I ran a Distance Learning Hindi program based at La Trobe University which is in Melbourne Australia. It was based around the idea of students learning via a correspondence course. Australia is a unique country as despite having a land area equal to that of the USA (roughly) its population is hardly twenty million people. So its really difficult for people to come together to study a language of lesser demand like Hindi. Distance learning makes it possible. Students also studied with me from as far away as Paris, Nepal, St Louis, Hawaii and Singapore and found that it helped them in their Hindi studies. I wote Hindi teaching materials for La Trobe which try to be as self explanatory as possible and guided independent learners through the learning process. In 2008 I came to Singapore and am now helping to set up a Hindi program at the National University of Singapore (NUS). This has given me an opportunity to redo my teaching materials again and incorporate into them insights gained from my experiences so far. Hopefully this means that NUS students will now have access to an exciting new Hindi course. Why Study Hindi?Less than five percent of Indians speak English. On the other hand around half of the Indian population can speak Hindi. So although you can certainly get by just fine in India speaking English, if you can speak Hindi you can talk with many more people and have a much deeper experience of being in India. To me the experiences I had during my first attempts to learn Hindi showed me that the point of learning Hindi is not only can you get to talk to more people in India but you can talk to people who you could never talk to in English. People whose world view is radically different from those who have learned English. |
Related Links External
Links Open House Day 2008 Posters
|
|
|
||
|
All Material © Dr Peter Gerard Friedlander unless otherwise indicated. |
||
