89 Comments
The audio sounds like "ek" but it is spelled like "eka". Is "ek" the correct pronunciation?
Ending "a" is never pronounced in Hindi, except when quoting Sanskrit, where it is always pronounced.
@DerGoldmann To intentionally end a word in the "a" sound, add the long vowel form - such as एका (although this isn't actually a word, but if you were to try to spell something else in Hindi script, like "Sara" - सैरा)
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Pronounced "ek". Not all characters realize their vowel ending. Another example is the word for India, हिंदुस्तान. It ends with the "na" character, but you only pronounce the consonant. (हिंदुस्तान is hindustaan). As you get to know the language better, reading the ends correctly will become more natural.
If anybody knows a rule for when you do vs dont pronounce the vowel ending, Id love to hear it. Ive always just gone by what feels/sounds right
What? Of course we care, we're trying to learn the language. Speak for yourself.
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I tested out from level 2 to 3 and got asked what एक was a few times in a row towards the end.
This is a great course though- thank you so much for putting it together!!
I'm learning hindi by myself and I do have Indian friends who help me if someone wants to practice with me he is more than welcome
Hey.. I see you are learning spanish .. i can help you with hindi and you can be my buddy to.practise Spanish..
How are we supposed to know this? Please teach this. Looking forward to learning all the awesome numbers. You've guys done a fantastic job otherwise. Please please keep up the great work!!!!!!!!!
Their system may just be trial and error - like how the matching ones you can't actually get wrong, it just won't let you advance until you've paired them up correctly. The listening ones also help, as you can listen to the sound and then listen to each of the options by clicking on them before having to submit the answer.
Having the script as the only option is hard. With Duolingo Mandarin, you can click on the script and have the Romanized word, or the definition. That would be extremely helpful, as non-Hindi-natives will appreciate not having to know the script to be able to learn to speak the language.
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If youre really set on learning hindi, you should definitely invest time in learning devanagari. It will only help you in the end. Reading their script will help you to not read with any english pronounciation that is hardwired in your brain, so you'll even end up speaking better if you learn it. Mandarin may be a bit different since there are many unique hanzi that can take a lot of time to learn. Devanagari is a bit easier, and the fact that duo doesnt give romanized pronunciations just means theres no crutch to rely on, so you'll pick up on the hindi script faster.
I find the Romanization rather harmful and distracting. Romanization is often based how certain characters are pronounced in some other language. This language is often English, which itself has the most screwed-up grapheme to phoneme mapping. Here is it the same: the sound, which is transcribed as 'ai' sounds for me (as a German) like an 'ä'. And the sound of थ, which is transcribed as 'tha' sounds distinctly like 'k' to me. This Romanization into 'tha' utterly confuses me. Now I have to learn: 'tha' = 'ka' = थ.
When I first started learning Hindi, I found it so difficult to look at words spelled with Roman characters, especially because the standard spelling is almost never the exact transliteration. Additionally, it is so hard to tell if "d" should be द, ड, ढ़, ड़, ढ, etc., so using Devanagari script eliminates that confusion. Additionally, the proper way to transliterate most words leads to incorrect pronunciation. Take "Happy Birthday" for example: जन्मदिन मुबारक. The transliteration of this word looks like this: janmadin mubaarak. However, it is pronounced janamdin mubaarak. Roman script can consequently lead to errors in pronunciation, and additionally, by the time you learn how to properly pronounce the words from their transliterated form, you could have learned Devanagari faster! (Even the word Devanagari is really pronounced Devnagri - misleading Roman spelling!) The last thing I'll say is that Devanagari is really the most simple, beautiful, efficient, logical writing system I have ever seen, so give it a try!!
How am I supposed to know just by seeing these letters that it means one?
The question is very unclear, it says "Write this in English" so I transliterated instead of translating.
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Some one wiser please correct if I am mistaken, but I dont believe any duo course will ever ask you to transliterate, only translations, since that it what will be used irl.
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Are you refering to एक and १? If you are, the difference is one and 1. If you arent, I'm not sure what other way there is..
I have just gotten this for the 6th time —I don't just mean this particular word, I mean the instruction to translate it in to English, I've gotten the word in other ways too— in the test out of the first level in the first topic. There's no way to report this with the report button, since free-form reporting has been turned off. So here I am, hoping that somebody will improve the testing algorithm.
I haven't yet been taught that 'ek' in hindi is 'one' in english. So, how would I know the correct answer. please?
While I was learning German, I found saying 'ich' really tough. To me it sounded more like इख or इश . Never really figured it out.
I am attempting to test out of the letters section but it keeps asking me "one"/"ek" over and over, is this a known issue being worked on? Thank you!
In all the tests to upgrade level the only thing you have to do is translate "one" wtf who did this
What's the point of asking a question with only one answer? There's absolutely no challenge...
I'm learning letters and their sounds very basic short beginner and it asked me to translate without ever teaching me? I only knew how to type the word in the English alphabet as aika -_-
