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The
BBC's Hindi Urdu Bol Chaal is a beginner's course in spoken Hindi
and Urdu.
The book provides material for approximately 100 hours of study
and covers topics including simple greetings, family, jobs, health
and education. The book is sold separately but can be accompanied
by a set of two cassettes which contain conversations, listening
exercises, pronunciation guides and listen and speak practices.
I must admit I was slightly apprehensive about learning Hindi and
Urdu because up until now I have only ever learnt the romance languages
such as French and Spanish, whose grammar and vocabulary are kind
of similar. To attempt to learn Hindi and Urdu meant that I had
to learn a whole new system of language (I suppose that comes with
learning a new language and culture though, it's all about broadening
horizons!)
The book has
10 units, each with different sections, including dialogues and
notes check up (just to check that you've understood the dialogue),
keywords (pretty self explanatory I think!), sound systems (pronunciation
hints), how the language works (grammar), exercises (a chance to
practice what you have learnt), background (history of Hindi and
Urdu - I know sounds tedious but is actually very interesting),
and review sections. The exercise section is absolutely ace, you
can do crosswords using the new vocabulary you have learnt and also
fill in speech bubbles (it felt like I was back in school again
which without sounding too much like a geek was actually fun!).
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The exercise section is
absolutely ace - you can do crosswords using the new vocabulary
you have learnt and also fill in speech bubbles.
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When I first
played the tapes, I felt like the course was too hard and I would
never be able to pronounce the words. But I just rewound again,
told myself I could do it and carried on. It did take about three
plays of the same conversation before I felt I could say the words
correctly. At the end of the day the course is designed to be used
however you want it to be used and as long as you are learning,
it doesn't matter how many times you repeat the tape.
The tapes are
used with the book; you know when to play the tape as there are
small tape signs by the text. They
are designed to be played with the book, and you will not get any
value if you listen to the tapes without the book. You simply learn
the words you have looked at in the section and hear them being
pronounced. There is a man on the tape who sounds like an English-speaker
but has a different accent on some words (perhaps he is bilingual!).
Unlike most language tapes where you have to stop the tape, this
program allows you to answer in the pauses provided and surprisingly
these are long enough to answer (even with added thinking time!)
There are exercises
where you have to listen and answer questions. In unit 1, they were
short conversations; you have to answer the questions: "Are
the greetings Hindu Sikh or Muslim? What are the names of the two
people? How are they?" These may look like simple enough questions
but they really help you to learn, especially when it is a language
completely unknown to you. I liked the fact this tape asked you
questions and you had "fun things" to do - it made learning
this language a lot easier to do for me. I think even if you had
some prior knowledge of the language through family and community
ties, you'd still find the course useful and fun.
As mentioned
above the tape is meant to be more of listening practise than actually
learning new language from the tape. It is the book which provides
most of the information to learning this language and the tape is
kind of a back up so you can get used to hearing the language being
spoken. The idea is to listen to the dialogue to get yourself familiar
with the sounds of the dialogue and then to read through the book
and look at key words. Then you are meant to return to the tape
to listen to it again so this time you can understand what you are
listening to. To me this was slightly exhausting, as I prefer to
have language courses where you can listen to the tape as the main
part of the course and then use the book as a back up. But then
again, this was all new to me because I haven't done a course like
this before.
The tape is aimed at beginners, so the level does not change throughout.
A good thing I found with this approach was that instead of recapping
what you had already learnt with faster dialogues, you actually
ended up learning more content. I found this better as I prefer
to have more knowledge of lots of subjects rather than have knowledge
of one subject but be able to speed through it so fast hardly anyone
would be able to understand me anyway.
I really enjoyed
doing this course - it really was something new for me. I live in
Birmingham in the UK where there is a big Hindi-speaking population,
so found this very handy. I even managed to surprise one of my friends
by asking her how she was and what jobs she had done. It was only
when she replied with a very long answer that I realised maybe I
should go and buy an intermediate course so I can have a proper
conversation with her in Hindi!
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I
even managed to surprise one of my friends by asking her how
she was and what jobs she had done.
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Click
here for more information and to purchase BBC
Hindi Urdu Bol Chaal language courses.
The BBC beginner language courses
are available in Hindi, Urdu, Japanese and Portuguese on CD or cassette.
Click
here for more information about all BBC
Languages courses.
Click here for more information about other Hindi
language courses.
If
you require any further information,
please contact us!
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