These materials, supplied in PDF format and freely available to anyone who finds them useful, have been written primarily to accompany my
Complete Hindi (formerly
‘Teach Yourself Hindi’) and
Beginner’s Hindi course-books. Some are simple one-page handouts; others are longer documents that follow the structure of the books themselves.
Many thanks to Professor Frances Pritchett and Jonathan Seefeldt for moral and practical support, and to Chelsea Aldridge for eagle-eyed proofreading. Any mistakes are all my own work.
Rupert Snell
Hindi-Urdu Flagship
Non-technical explanations of terms used in language books, from ‘Absolutive’ to ‘Vocative’ (didn’t quite make it to ‘Zeugma’!); with Hindi examples.
Each section of
TY Hindi is reduced to a statement of the basic grammatical ‘rule’, with a couple of examples. Useful as an
aide-mémoire and as a checklist of things learnt.
A set of exercises for
TY Hindi, often beginning with the learner being asked to explain a certain construction — the student becomes the teacher.
Another set of exercises for
TY Hindi, useful for private study or for class homework (unlike in the book, ‘answers’ are not supplied!).
A very simple four-part matrix to encourage the making of basic sentences with subject, adverb, object and verb.
A role-play matrix to stimulate class Q-&-A sessions: students respond to everyday questions that involve a wide range of tenses.
A table of verbs in two parts, first intransitive and then transitive, showing the form of the perfective participle and giving copious examples of the
ne construction.
Use this cheat-sheet by tracing a pronoun on one axis and a postposition on the other to achieve such combinations as ‘
ve + ke lie = unke lie’.
Ten commandments for learners eager to avoid sinfulness in their written Hindi.
A brief encounter with some of the many Hindi idioms based on food and eating.
Some ways of drilling basic phrases and constructions, to be used by individuals or in class. This is an essential step in achieving fluency — like playing scales for a musician.
A list of common expressions based on the postposition
ko.
A suggested outline for a simple but effective role-play in which students talk to a hotel manager. It’s based on English questions, but Hindi ones could be substituted.
Some Hindi definitions of Hindi words, but with the headwords removed. Read the definition and figure out the headword it describes! Intermediate level & above.
A one-page summary of the working of absolutives (aka conjunctive particles,
sunkar/
karke construction), and a fill-the-gaps exercise.
A crossword puzzle borrowed from
Beginner’s Hindi; useful as a reminder of the syllabic structure of Devanagari. Key also available.
No cheating: do the crossword
before you check this!
