"एक"
Translation:one
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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
Yes, there is a rule. Its called Schwa syncope. Don't worry if it scares you, it basically means if a consonant at the end of a word is combined with the vowel "अ", then the sound is dropped. Example: सेब would be pronounced as se-b and not se-ba. This is done in many Indo-Aryan languages while speaking. Native speaker here. HTH
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.
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.
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!!
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.
Please, don't give up. Really, Hindi script is not that hard to learn. Go on Memrise, and train yourself. I really can tell you, because I had the same difficulties at the beginning when learning a little of Hindi letters, and finally it's relatively easy, but you would need to write the letters with a pen.
That's the problem, there should be a tracing letter exercice on Duolingo I think, but they didn't add it to the global exercises database yet.
i have study this language but i don't understand most words but this is super duper easy
I'd like to restart the course, focusing only on understanding and speaking the language. I find too much emphasis on the letters (alphabet) at the beginning of the course, and it's difficult to distinguish their individual sounds. I really just want to converse in Hindi. Is it possible to start again without learning the Hindi alphabet?? Please help.
No. The entire course uses only the Devanagari script so you will not able to move further without learning the script.
If you find that the 'Letters' lessons are not working for you, one thing you can do is to learn the script from another source and then come back to Duolingo. There are many resources online (including on Youtube) to learn the script.