There are a large number of visitors to the site that are trying to learn Hindi, but their mother tongue is not English. A lot of these listeners are know Spanish as their first language. However, it seems there are not many resources available for Spanish speakers to learn Hindi.

We are working with one of our listeners, Sara, from Venezuela to produce a Hindi word of the day targeted at Spanish speakers. As we get better at working together, and get a process down, we will probably take the majority of the content and put it on the Spanish site as well. We are still working on what to call it, but for now it is at http://www.espanol.ispeakhindi.com/

Take a look and let us know what you think.  And thank you Sara for helping us do this!

You can see the other words of the day in Spanish on our wiki:  http://www.ispeakhindi.com/wiki/index.php?title=En_Espanol

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today we start to cover how the Hindi alphabet is represented in the Hindi letters. Today we cover A-H which is also covered on pg. 4-5 in the Kid’s Primer (http://www.ispeakhindi.com/2008/06/26/260-kids-primer-intro260-kids-primer-intro/.

Below is each of the English alphabet letters and how to write the letter name in Hindi. It should make more sense after you listen to the podcast.

A = ए
B = बी (this is ब + ई: ब = ba and ई = E. When the vowel ई is combined with a consonant, it is written as ी. So बी is pronounced “be”; we will use “i” as a long “E”, so you sill see ई written “ii”. so you will see बी written as “bii”)
C = सी (स = sa, but when you add ई (ii) it becomes सी (sii) which is pronounced (see))
D = डी (ड = da, but when you add ई (ii) it becomes डी (dii) which is pronounced (dee))
E = ई
F = एफ (ए is pronounced as a long “A”, and we will write it as “e”. फ is “pha” pronounced as “fa”. But the last vowel sound is dropped unless specifically written. so this becomes “A-ph”)
G = जी (ज = “ja”; जी = “jii” pronounced like “gee”)
H = एच (च = cha. and the last “default” vowel is dropped so एच becomes “e-ch”)