"That is an apple."
Translation:वह एक सेब है।
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Thank you so much for making Hindi available to the world to learn on Duolingo! Very much looking forward to the rest of the course! :)
Regarding this sentence: At this point, I am stuck. I have no idea what to do, can only randomly select words. I think Devangari would need more detailed introduction: letters need more repetition, the combination of the various syllables (?), I think, needs more time/excercise to be understood an remembered properly; then, single words can be introduced, specifically consisting of the letters learned immediately beforehand; then, slowly, words can be combined; then sentences like this one. In short, and this is just the impression of a naive learner ;), people need to be able to read, 'speak' a word and sentence, before they can 'understand'.
(I am saying that as a European with no exposure to learning other scripts; for French it might be possible to learn such sentences, because I can somehow pronounce what I read, but for Devangari/Hindi I am lost without that reading-skill.)
I found it very useful to write down in my notebook the letters and words taught and then writing ther transliterations and translations. Hope that helps :-)
Yes, it's the only way to learn. Write in a notebook, and don't go to the next exercise until you are able to read the sentence (see my tips in this page)
I used to use this site: http://www.learning-hindi.com It is very useful as it presents the letters more systematically. There are patterns not explained here that you just can't figure out by trial and error. They are not random strokes. Please vote this post so that more can see.
I totally agree. Everything up until this point have been okay, but suddenly from out of nowhere I get all these words that doesn't mean anything to me.
While learning the characters i was heavily relying on sound. Here I am stuck with the writing.
I have failed many times and i even look at the correct answer for the longest time, yet i cannot get it right just a few seconds later when I try.
I agree, the characters are thrown in very quickly with no previous discussion of sentence structure, so now I'm at a snails pace trying to memorize every single unique character. Perhaps they can work on it.
You do it right, "at snail pace, trying to memorize every single character". That's the way to do it.
The reason why the course is not very user friendly, is not that the Latin translitteration is lacking, the reason is that we don't have an exercise letting us tracing the letters. It's the only way to memorize them.
Exactly the same thing happens to me. I try to mix it up a bit, by writing some of the words and speed through the alphabet before, as a warm up. Just keep practising, the clues are there, but more pictures would be good before the lesson.
You really should re-do the preceding lessons again and again until you can read and write the Hindi script fluently .. also write them yourself .. There are about 54 "letters" which mostly are combinations of two or more Latin letters, also with a non-English pronunciation.. It took me a few days to understand the pattern of consonants and vowels in the characters. On top of that there are some rules. Consonants standard have an "a" after them, unless another vowel is present in that "letter." But that "a" is dropped at the end of a word, hence it is "Raj" and not "raja." I'm a Dutch native speaker btw. If you want less letters, try Hebrew, they don't write vowels .. very interesting .. Success! (Aug 2020)
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Yes, it is very difficult. The moment in time when all the differences between the two languages hit you in the face. DO NOT WORRY. THIS IS NORMAL. This happens very often in serious language learning. It is because you study with your daytime brain but learn languages with your sleeping brain... You just need to go back and repeat the letters 1,2,3 and 4 quickly every day until the sleeping part of your brain catches up with the studying part of your brain. Repetition is the key. You can do it. Maybe reread the tips and notes, because there are many sounds in Hindi which are foreign to the European ear. Also, because of the different script you will need to dedicate more time per day than for a European language. Because your brain has to process more information. Remember also that everything you ever learnt about grammar has to be relearnt. Word order is different. This includes the very basic structure of the simplest sentence. Hope this helps.
Thank you so much for making Hindi available to the world to learn on DUOLINGO !
This is a user discussion forum relevant to the exercise. If you want to provide feedback to Duolingo, you need to write to them on the appropriate web page. I don't think any of the peogrammers at DL look into user discussions that are relevant to exercises...
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If you keep written notes this is really easy so far. Just write words and signs, look for similarities in the different letters, e.g. the different vowels . I am totally new to this language, but until here it is doable.
I confirm it's easy after a while and several tries if you have a notebook and write everything you meet, and it's very hard if you don't write.
So, make your choice...
I think the words should be shown in english too how to pronounce it instead of just the hindi characters
You have to do this work youself.
You have 2 possibilities.
Either, before taking this course, you train yourself with Youtube and Memrise, and take the letters Duo part as a test, or you could learn reading while making the exercises. You spend more time on each sentence, at this level, they give always the same words, so it's not very hard to read after a few tries.
For instance, I don't know how to read in Hindi this sentence, in this exercise:
वह एक सेब है।
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagari#Letters
If you did several times the "letters" part in Duo, you are already a bit familiar with them.
व = v (va)
ह = h (ha)
So: Vaha.
Note this word in your notebook as:
वह (vaha) = that.
ए e
क k
So: ek
ek = one एक
से s
ब b
Seb = apple सेब
है = "ai" = is
It's not very hard. Do that for each sentences, and it will be easy.
I feel like a 4 yr old putting together sounds and making a word. Did I skip a chapter somewhere? Practice makes perfect. Write down these words. Other languages make you write because the script is in English alphabets. Have a notebook.
I speak hindhi but started this course to be able read and write as well. So I'm certain this is an incorrect use of "Wa-ha" meaning "There". "That" is ""Woh" and "This" is "Yeh". So the correct way to say "That is an apple" is "Woh ek seyb he"
'This' and 'that' are written यह and वह but usually pronounced 'yeh' and 'voh' as you say. This course uses the (admittedly less common) phonetic pronunciations, however.
Such deviations from phonetic pronunciations happen in Hindi around the letter ह. For example, 'sister' is written बहन but pronounced 'behen', 'a lot' is written बहुत but pronounced 'bohot' etc.
'Here' and 'there' are यहाँ (yahā̃) and वहाँ (vahā̃) where the last vowel must be nasalised.
For those who don't know the order of hindi alphabets :
VOWELS:
अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ऋ (ri / ru ) ए ऐ ओ औ अं अः
NOTE : Duolingo has not taught the letter ऋ . It is pronounced as ri / ru .
CONSONANTS :
क ख ग घ ङ च छ ज झ ञ ट ठ ड ढ ण त थ द ध न प फ ब भ म य र ल व श ष स ह क्ष त्र ज्ञ
There are many CONSONANTS that Duolingo has not taught.
You can learn their pronunciation on https://youtu.be/6ebC_gGWW7Q
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This is almost the most difficult language for me to learn since I started my Chinese learning 40 years ago
It's because you need a good method, maybe you didn't have the good basis with the letters. I assure you that Chinese is far more difficult than Hindi, if you are an European speaker.
What is the difference between "वह" and "यह". Since Duolingo doesnt give meanings of words like these it's been difficult for me .
वह is 'that' and यह is 'this'.
In addition, both can be used for 'he', 'she' and 'it'.
यह is used when the person or thing is close to you (literally, emotionally or symbolically - for example, when you point at a photo of someone) and वह is used when the person or thing is far away.
I feel the pronounciations are way different than a native speaker like me would like. Like there is a difference between वह and वो
The 'English for Hindi speakers' course already exists on Duolingo. Click on this link and press on 'Start course'.
Unfair because they dont teach you the grammar here, you are supposed to guess and the hints not even work. I only found out how hard Indian grammaer can be and I too found out that they didn't put this in most likely on purpose to get you to get premium (plus). Pls fix
Duolingo tries to replicate the process by which you learn a language in the real world through immersion.
Don't worry if you are not able to get the correct translation the first time you see a sentence. You are only expected to make an educated guess based on the sentences you've already encountered and the word meanings (mouseover or click on individual words to get the meanings). Then, as you encounter that sentence and others like it repeatedly, you'll get used to the way the language works without getting into the nitty-gritty of the grammar. If you do want to know more about the grammar, you have the tips on the lessons as a starting point and can always ask in this forum if you have questions.