Learning Hindi is Hard!

Okay... so I knew that learning another language wasn't going to be a peice of cake... but I didn't think it would be quite like this.

I have a language helper that comes to meet with me twice a week for 1 1/2 hours each time. Her name is Nirmala and she is so cute and as skinny as a rail! :) She is doing a good job... but I must admit there are some things that I just don't get. So there are verbs and then there are helping verbs. Sometimes a verb is used with a helping verb and sometimes it isn't. There isn't a rule that I can learn to figure out when to use the helping verb and when not to. It's just something I have to figure out case by case. I like rules much better. I'm less likely to make a fool out of myself that way. Well... I guess I just need to get over it... cause I'm going to make a fool out of myself and I'm going to do it a lot. I had just better get used to it now. :) So, Nirmala and I have been working on verbs these past few weeks and I AM learning... just not as fast as I would like. Hee hee... again get over it right! Next time we meet... I get to work on time... and verbs by trying to tell her what I did at different times throughout the day.

Hindi is also difficult to learn here because so many people speak English. Really it was surprising to me too. :) Most of the educated people speak English and there are even those who grew up learning English as their first language. Learning Hindi from these people is okay but not the best... because they may not know it well enought to teach it. Another large part of the population in Mumbai are uneducated but only know their own mother tongue which just happens to be Tamil or Marathi... NOT Hindi. So they are not much help either.

I'm finding some things that I can do that do help in my language learning. I have my Rosetta Stone for my computer that I have used several times. I need to work on that a little more frequently. There is a small group that meets in a home just near my apartment and it is a Hindi speaking small group. I will be visiting that this week and plan to practice my listening skills. There is also Hindi music and Hindi TV stations that I can practice my listening skills. I hope to practice more my conversational Hindi when I move out of the city at the end of July to work in the womens home.

So there is a little inside picture of my language learning experience. Please be lifting me up in this... I really want to be able to communicate well... but the process of getting there at times is not very much fun. But I'm hangin in there. :)

Just saying Hi!

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I just wanted to say hi. :) I know my voice sounds really weird and high pitched... not sure how to fix that... anyway hope you get a laugh or at least a giggle from it. :) Enjoy!

My (temporary) Apartment in Mumbai

Here are some pictures of my temporary apartment. I will be staying here until mid July when I will be moving out of the city. We are kind of being spoiled with this place. We have hot water, air conditioning, water purification and even a washing machine! All of these are luxuries here that we will not have (most likely) after mid-July. I guess you can say that we are easing into the Indian way of living (at least for the majority of Indians).
So all is well for me. I am enjoying the few more days that I have the appartment to myself before Marcy & Danielle arrive on Friday. It will be nice to have them... but I admit, I will miss my alone time and having the whole place to myself. I have found that I rather enjoy living alone. Especially in India... where it is so difficult to get alone anywhere.
Language lessons are going well. I have had two of them now. My teacher is in her twenties and she teaches middle school aged children. She is very sweet. We have been working on conjugating verbs... a challenge but I am making progress. :) I would most appreciate you prys regarding my language learning. I wish I could just snap my fingers and I would be fluent. It is most difficult and humiliating at times when you mess up and say something really stupid. Still... it must be done if I want to communicate well and value what they value. I can learn Hindi. I can learn Hindi. I CAN learn Hindi! There... I think I'm motivated now. :)