Elementary Hindi: (MP3 Audio CD Included)

I guess everyone learns differently, but for me the book has been superb. I also purchased the Workbook and the two together are necessary, I would say, if you really want to progress as effectively as possible in your learning journey. I have found the chapters very well structured for progressive learning of Hindi letters, pronunciation, vocab and grammatical principles. Also, I didn’t have any problems with the CD -I loaded it onto iTunes and have found the sound quality absolutely fine and help with my learning of Hindi pronunciation. I’ve learnt a number of languages to a basic level over the years and have found this to be the best book for learning a language out of all I have encountered. If you want to learn Hindi in an in-depth way (ie building up by learning grammatical principles), then I highly recommend this book. If you want to maybe learn for a trip abroad, it may be a little heavy going. I wish all language tutors were like this book. Top marks for what I needed.

While I do agree this is a good method of Hindi my review will be far less stellar than the ones that convinced me to buy it. First be warned that this is a "serious" method of hindi written by a university professor and probably inspired from his classes. It is NOT targeted at the casual learner and is not more adapted for the classroom than for the self learner. The method for example does not use the "crutches" of any romanisation/transliteration system for beginners and only use the devanagari script. Which means the absolute beginner will spend the first 6 lessons learning to read and write before he is exposed to his first dialogue in Hindi.... Likewise the method is more focussed on grammatical patterns than on colloquial usage. Nothing wrong with that if you're bookish in your approach to language learning - but is you're more of a hands-on/ communicative person this method will make you very frustrated. What really brings this method down to 2 stars for me is the inexcusable lack of quality of the mp3 recordings. First the sound quality is awful - the voices are blurred by reverberation and background noise. Think of a 1980's amateur tape recording made in a garage and you'll get the idea...(we're in 2014 for heaven's sake!) Second the reading/acting is terrible - The speakers are native but they just drone on without putting any tone or emotion in their delivery. Finally please note that the majority of the recordings can only be used with the workbook (sold separately) and are useless on their own. Out of 140 mp3 files about 30 are usable with the textbook ALL the others are "workbook activities"..... This being said there aren't that many usable Hindi methods on the market and none are perfect... so let's say that this is one of the better ones... but still a far, far shot from reaching the quality found for other languages.

This seems t be aimed at liguists rather than people trying to "Communicate in Everyday Situation". The rccomended workbook should be included as part of a package rather than having to be purchased separately at significant cost. There's No CD included with the book although there is free online audio.

It is easy to make progress and to learn. The pedagogy used by the authors serves very well the learner. Of course, the main assumption is that you can read the Hindi script. If that is the case, then this is truly the best book there is to learn Hindi. Have a look at my books in the attached picture. I have tried many other forms... I don't know the authors. This is a genuine reference to help others wanting to learn Hindi.

Excellente méthode pour débutants, très claire et progressive. Certaines parties doivent être bien entendu adaptées à un apprenant francophone puisque la méthode est en anglais et s'adresse à des anglophones.

Muy completo y a buen precio . Además tiene un CD para hacer ejercicios de escuchar y contestar en el libro.

This is a very helpful and nice book. A glossy, full-content book with heaps of fun features! This will definitely help me with my Hindi Course! (Just note that there is a separate workbook that does not come along with this book... the workbook is not essential though... just for extra practice.)

This program is amazing! I just finished the first lesson and I'm already reading Hindi. What I thought were just odd symbols are now becoming words to me. I'm excited to see how fast I'm going to progress with this. I recommend this book highly. I also suggest you get the Elementary Hindi Workbook with this book. They work so nicely together. Very very impressed!

I think this is a very good book to learn Hindi from, including the Devanagari script. Do also buy the workbook and flash cards. It is certainly one of the best textbooks on Hindi since Fairbanks published his textbook in the 1960s.