It is possible that soon I will work on a project in India. So I wanted to learn at least the basics of Hindi, and the Devanagari Script. I really enjoy learning languages, and I was curious to see how easy or difficult I would find learning Hindi after studying Mandarin for the past few years.
Hindi is very different from Mandarin. And it is my prediction that it will be easier/faster to learn. Most notably because Hindi uses a sort of 'alphabet', called the Devanagari Script, where each 'letter' represents a possible syllable that you can use. There are consonants and vowels. And the combination of those allows you to write the words you speak or hear.
I decided to focus first on learning the Devanagari Script. The script has about 40 consonants and 15 Vowels, plus 10 extra "short-hand" vowel signs. I've been spending the last few days learning to read, write, and pronounce each consonant and vowel. To the point now where I can sound out any word in Hindi. I may not know what it means, but I can sound it out phonetically. This is a big step, and a serious advantage that Hindi has over Mandarin. In Mandarin, there are thousands of Chinese Characters to learn, none of which are phonetic. And so the only way you can learn to read is to memorize each character. So learning Hindi will be quite different. And I expect the reading aspect to be much quicker.
I have not started yet with any grammar or even much vocabulary (other than the simple real words I use to practice my letter recognition). I bought a book on how to teach yourself Devanagari, and I plan to spend the next few days or a week really mastering the letters and learning to "read" in Hindi.
It is quite exciting. And I am glad to say I can already type in Hindi on my mobile phone!
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