In our weekly newsletter, there was an offering for Hindi classes. Since Stewart and I really want to immerse ourselves in the Indian culture while living out here, it only made sense that we sign up. Little did we know that would result in us getting to the embassy first thing in the morning for a 7:30am class. I use the term class loosely. It's Stewart, me, ........... and the teacher. I'm hoping the small size will make learning another language easier for Stewart and I. Obviously, there's a lot of time for us to practice one on one with the teacher. The set up of the class is different too. Today, we learned pronouns and sentence structure. Then we jumped right in learning how to say things like "this is a table" yah mez hai and "no, this is not a newspaper" nahi, yah akhbar nahi hai. Of course, things we'll need to know right off the bat :-)
I finally confessed to Sunil that we're taking the class. When I told him before that I was interested, he told me that I didn't need to take a class because he could teach me everything I need to know in six months. After I told him this morning on the way back to the house, he asked why I was taking it because he told me he could teach me. I've already tried to explain that I'm a visual learner and learning words and phrases while driving around New Delhi wasn't going to make me fluent. He didn't quite get it so today I explained my job requires that I work with a lot of Indians. He told me that he would still be willing to help me so I told him I was planning on practicing with him a lot. I think my plan is to slowly change out English words for Hindi words that I'm learning. Right now, this consists of thank you, okay, yes, no, and various fruits and vegetables. Our teacher calls it Hinglish.
I can't wait to see how our Hindi progresses over the next several weeks and years.
I finally confessed to Sunil that we're taking the class. When I told him before that I was interested, he told me that I didn't need to take a class because he could teach me everything I need to know in six months. After I told him this morning on the way back to the house, he asked why I was taking it because he told me he could teach me. I've already tried to explain that I'm a visual learner and learning words and phrases while driving around New Delhi wasn't going to make me fluent. He didn't quite get it so today I explained my job requires that I work with a lot of Indians. He told me that he would still be willing to help me so I told him I was planning on practicing with him a lot. I think my plan is to slowly change out English words for Hindi words that I'm learning. Right now, this consists of thank you, okay, yes, no, and various fruits and vegetables. Our teacher calls it Hinglish.
I can't wait to see how our Hindi progresses over the next several weeks and years.
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