Weather
Asking and Telling Time
Family
Parts of the Body
Map Directions
PART 3 Getting Around
At the Airport
Hiring a Taxi or Autorickshaw
Renting a Vehicle
Hiring a Cycle Rickshaw
At a Train Station
Metro Rail
Traveling by Bus
Asking for Directions & Locations
PART 4 Emergencies and Essentials; Lodging
At the Police Station
Medical Emergencies
Accommodations
Making Reservations
Banking and Money
PART 5 In a Restaurant; Out and About
Ordering Food and Paying the Bill
Shopping
Purchasing & Bargaining
At a Book Store
At a Clothing Store
Measurements & Sizes
At the Post Office
At a Pharmacy
At the Barbershop
At the Beauty Salon
Using the Telephone / Cell Phones
PART 6 Enjoying India
Holidays
Holiday Greetings
Top Destinations in India
Sightseeing
PART 7 Key Names & Signs
India’s States and Union Territories
Common Signs
Road Signs
PART 8 Additional Vocabulary
Food Terms
General Word List
WELCOME!
We welcome you with the traditional Hindi greeting “Namaste,” which means “I bow to you,” and are very pleased to take you on a short journey through Hindi, the official language of India.
With a little bit of instruction about how Hindi works, we will help you properly communicate with the locals in India. We’ll help you speak to others on various basic “survival” topics, such as introducing yourself, asking for directions, ordering food, paying a bill, bargaining with a local vendor, and even reporting an incident to police. Essentially, all the things you might find most useful to say are in this survival guide for getting by in Hindi.
Our years of experience teaching Hindi to non-natives, along with vast personal interactions with foreigners in India, have armed us with an abundance of detailed cultural and linguistic information. We hope that here in Survival Hindi, it will serve to ease your journey, and give you a sense of joy in more fully understanding India and its people. Let’s begin!
INTRODUCTION
“The Language of the Gods”
Hindi, spoken today by nearly 500 million people as a first language, is derived from the ancient language Sanskrit, considered one of the most intriguing, musical, and divine languages ever spoken. Sanskrit is recognized by its unique written alphabet, Devanagari, meaning “Language of the Gods.” Hindi retains the use of Devanagari today as its own alphabet. Of the numerous daughter tongues originating from Sanskrit, Hindi is the most widespread, and is one of the 22 official languages of the Republic of India.
According to Hindu mythology, the human voice, or vak, was provided to mankind by the goddess Sarasvati, who presided over wisdom, knowledge, learning, music, and the arts. Vak is also often personified as a separate goddess commonly identified with Bharati (Bhaar-tee) or Sharda (Shaar-daa), the goddess of speech. The term vak is a cognate to the modern English word voice (Latin vox), and is derived from the verbal root vac-, meaning “to speak, tell, utter.” It also shares meaning with such words as “speech” and “talk.”
The Alphabet
Hindi script (Devanagari) is made up of 46 basic characters; there are 33 consonants and 12 vowels. Each character stands for one syllable.
The Devanagari script represents the phonetics of the Hindi language. This means that Hindi is spoken the same way it is spelled. Its alphabet is scientifically arranged.
Along with the written Hindi, each phrase in this book offers you an easy, English-based transliteration to help you pronounce it. Here’s how it works.
Pronunciation Guide
Long Vowels
ā (aa) car
ī (ee) beet
é (a) gate
ū (oo) fool
Short Vowels
i (it)
u (put, foot)
Nasal Sounds
A dot over a consonant or a vowel, or an “n” in parentheses, indicates a nasal sound. Imagine you are half-saying an “n” or “m” sound after that syllable.
hai(n) mei(n)
ṁ as in “ṁandir ” (mun-dir)
é̇ as in “lé̇gé” (layn-gay)
Sometimes you’ll see a nasal ending after a long vowel:
ā̇ as in “sārdiyā̇ ” (saard-iyaan)
Vowels
