<p>I have to take 1 year of language to meet distribution requirements for graduation (etc etc). I was going to sign up for Italian, but as a native Hindi speaker, I thought it'd be cool/easy to take the language in college. I can speak basic Hindi (just enough to not get me raped/mugged in India, but I"m no poet), but I can't read/write. I would sign up w/o further thought, but my mom's passed on some horror stories of how kids got obliterated in their Hindi classes, and she warned that the same would happen to me. Has anyone actually taken Hindi classes? Is it really that tough?</p>
<p>Dude I don't think many colleges even offer Hindi classes. Hindi isn't tough at all - understanding is a lot easier than writing/reading though.</p>
<p>why is hindi not tough to understand/ learn, it is a very complicated language. So is Urdu</p>
<p>^ well, it's Indo-European, so Hindustani (just grouping Hindi/Urdu) is not so removed from the Romance languages as other langauges are. That probably makes it a bit easier to learn/understand. I'm more worried about reading/writing, and how difficult Hindi classes are in general.</p>
<p>I guess it depends - I speak Hindi at home with my parents so its not a big deal for me.</p>
<p>sign up if its too much drop it or the semester before sit in the class and see how you like</p>
<p>Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Go for it. You can always drop if it is murder, which I doubt.</p>
<p>I speak Hinglish at home as well, so I dunno.</p>
<p>Mightynick, how did english become your first language; you only came here about 6 years ago, right? I guess the community in princeton must be mainly suburbian-white. I think most large state schools offer obscure/unpopular languages, even if the classes are very intimate. I shun speaking my native language and am not the most articulate person(orally) either way, but I imagine taking a course in it would be dull if you already know the basics. Language course in general are ineffective for the most part. I have heard of people who major in a language and still can't get near the facility and proficiency of a native speaker. So you might as well buy a book and learn the basic stuff on your own.</p>
<p>I've never been taught Hindi, formally. I have no problem understanding or speaking the language, but I struggle in reading and writing. I don't have an Indian accent either!</p>
<p>Well, you may never be able to master a langage as fluently as a native speaker even if you major in it and study it for years, but trust me, if you travel to a country where it's spoken and stay long enough you would be amazed how fast you start to speak like a native. Also, being able to speak the country's language helps communicate with the people, even when they speak perfect english. I've found that they really appreciate the time and effort you put into it. Except for waiters in paris, but they hate everyone :)</p>
<p>I learned hindi watching TV. Though I haven't had much experience speaking it, I do quite well when speaking to a native. I don't think writing will be that hard either. I can read and write in Bengali (similar to Hindi) and have not had much formal training. But you have to beware of the alphabets. There are soo many and many have the same sound. I believe there are like three or four versions of G. I can't recite the bengali alphabets from memory....
Urdu is another story since the script like that of arabic but if you understand hindi you should have to problem understanding urdu. And yeah, you read from the right to left in Urdu and that takes getting used to :P</p>
<p>Some of the alphabets sound the same but when you start speaking like a native they are correctly used in different words. There are 32 alphabets in Hindi if I am not mistaken. Talking and sentence forming is the hard part, writing is easy. It will definitely take some time to get used to the pronunciation and writing new alphabets (it's a whole different script after all), but writing isn't the hard part.</p>
<p>yeah, just to clarify, I can speak Hindi (hindi bolsakta hoon!), but I just can't read or write, so that's my only real challenge(s) . though, to be fair, my grammar + my dad's bombay hindi dont really help me much. at any rate, i'll take the class next semester (class is full for fall).</p>
<p>oh btw, its Hindi (not Hindee) and Urdu (no Oordu). :)</p>
<p>hahaha i know, i was just trying ot make it flashy, so people would respond (mission accmoplished)</p>
<p>i speak urdu at home and i guess it isnt to hard to learn if u r exposed to it all times. my little brother forget it all and then we started speaking it w/ him so he learned alot in like 2 months. But what i read at some college websites is that if ur a native speaker they dont have many classes for u in these languages. idk i could be mistaken.</p>
<p>Ok, you sort of have to approach this realistically.</p>
<p>Which school are you attending? I attend one of the top 10 most diverse universities in the nation, with Indian-Asians representing, approximately, 6% of the student body. It is also a very affordable school, so many foreigners attend. When Hindi-Urdu is offered, the classes often fill up with native speakers, and, if classes are curved (as they likely will be to some extent), the grading scale will be in favor of the students who already know the language somewhat / a lot and are merely taking the class to boost their GPA. I don't know about your school, but since mine is so diverse, this is true for any language, and is very much the reality.</p>
<p>For example, I took a 200-level Spanish literature and interpretation course taught all in Spanish, and there were 12 students in the class. Of the 12, I was the only non-native speaker, and I promptly dropped the course to take it another time because I couldn't keep up with those who already knew conversational Spanish and Spanish culture fluently.</p>
<p>Try to find out which demographic of people is likely to take the course.</p>
<p>i'm going to guess...rutgers?</p>
<p>The ladies love my Indian accent.</p>
<p>Go for it yaar.</p>