Hi fellow learners and lovers of Hindi.  It has been a while since I have created an episode of the Learn Hindi Daily show.  I want to check in and see how you are doing.

I have found it difficult keep a constant interest in Hindi.  About a month ago I felt completely different about my Hindi studies than I do today.  I felt like there was no point in me continuing to learn Hindi.  There were so many more pressing things to do.  I probably would never become fluent in Hindi.  I probably will not spend that much time in India.  So what is the point?  And I would always be either that cute little white guy trying to speak Hindi or the annoying one (depending on how long you knew me.)

But I like Hindi.  I like knowing the few thousand words that I know.  Being able to create basic sentences.  It is a great intellectual exercise.  And I am amazed at how it has stuck with me.  The Hindi that know now is a part of me, and I doubt I will ever lose it.

But we all have rough spots.  And the original purpose of creating this website was to help me and other get over them.

If you are new to studying Hindi, then you may not have felt demotivated yet.  Let my experience help you.  You will not have the same interest in Hindi everyday.  And that is perfectly OK.  Perhaps you do need a break and you will come back to it.  Or perhaps you need to struggle through those periods of disinterest.  If you have been studying Hindi for many, many years then perhaps you know exactly what I am talking about.   Please share your experience.  How do you stay motivated?  What brings you back to studying Hindi?  Email me your story at nathan@ISpeakHindi.com and let me share it with our fellow learners.

We have built several tools into the site to help encourage you to stay motivated. for example the “Master 4 words a day” program.

 

The idea is to have you review 4 words that you previously learned and then introduce you to 4 new words.  If you can make this part of your daily routine, I believe you will always be able to retain a large amount of the vocabulary that you know and continue to grow it.    We put the number of words that you know by your name when you login:

This helps to provide motivation to make this number bigger.   We also remind you in our daily email by displaying your vocabulary count and suggesting that you learn a few more words:

If you are not on our email list then you should sign up.  Getting a lesson in your email box each day can help keep you going.  Perhaps you go a few days or weeks ignoring them.  But then one catches your eye and you are back into the swing of things.

Also, when you master 4 words a day, we put you on the list of people that have done so for the day.

And we have several lists of the top 10 people to master words for the previous 24 hours, week, month, quarter, and all time.  Check out the top 10 lists.  Sometimes I see that I am just behind someone in the list, and I master a handful more words.

We have been using the number of words mastered in other ways too.  If you look at the members list page, you can see how many words that a particular person has mastered:

This can help you determine if this is a serious person learning Hindi.   Also, you can see who has started taking a break and maybe send them a message encouraging them to continue.

We have had a problem with spam on the site.  Lots of people registering on the site only to post a message about fake rolex watches or a link to a outlet shop or something like that.  If you have ever looked at the activity page, you know what I am talking about.  I have been manually deleting the spam and thinking of ways to prevent it.  I had this great idea.  I would disable the ability to send messages unless you have mastered at least 1 word.  You can still reply to other people’s messages, so it is still possible to spam the site and people.  But I think this will help a lot.

Another way to stay motivated is to set goals.  On January 1st, I published my goals for 2012.   This includes my personal learning goals and things I want to do with the site.   After having published these goals, I completely ignored them.  But now I have reviewed the list again and think I can still accomplish them in the remaining time.  One of those goals is to stop selling physical products.  Most of the people that use ISpeakHindi.com are not in the US.  And sending physical products to countries around the world is not something I am setup to do.  So, I have decided to focus on creating tools and services and materials that can be sent around the world freely.  That is electronic materials.  But I have an inventory that I need to work through.

For paid subscribers in the US, I am giving away the following items free:

You only have to pay $5 in shipping and handling.  This is only for paid members in the US.  If you are not already a paid member, then you should consider signing up.  It is only $12 every 3 months.  I only have about 20 packages of these left.  Find out more about this offer.

Also, the creator of the flashcards sent me a note saying that there are not many more flashcards left.  It may not be possible to order them anywhere until a new set is published.

That is all for today.  I hope that your Hindi studies are progressing well.  Come by the website and leave a comment to let us know how you are doing.

About the music

I would like to thank Reena Shah from the band My Pet Dragon for letting me use clips for their song Dragon Breath.   You can find out more information about the band at www.reverbnation.com/mypetdragon and you can buy the song from www.dancingreena.com/musicstore.

The clips used at the beginning, end and as transitional pieces are from:

Dragon Breath
performed by My Pet Dragon
written by Todd Michaelsen
Published by Dragon’s Lair (ASCAP)
Purchase the Song at www.dancingreena.com/musicstore

Download an entire month's worth of lessons. We have all the lessons from May 2009 through October 2011 in zip files containing the audio files and a PDF with all the lessons. You can download these in the paid subscriber area.

If you are not already a paid subscriber, you should consider becoming one. It is only $12 every 3 months. That's only $4/month. Learning Hindi is worth much more than $4/month, so this is a great deal.

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