Learning Hindi

I will be travelling to Kolkata, India in a few months and was wondering if there was a website somewhere that looked at ways of learning languages while you are travelling. While my interest is in a short course in Hindi, it would also be interesting to know if there was some kind of resource for that information in general as well.

Answer: It's wonderful that you plan to learn a bit of the language before going. I wouldn't do it any other way I travel. When I went to the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, I was fortunate enough to have the time to spend six months in Brazil before the meeting and used that time to become fluent in Brazilian Portuguese. Right now, I'm learning German and have been for several months because I live near the Swiss border and also have a lot of friends. I'm also going to Bangladesh with a group of Germans so I thought it would be great to be able to speak their language.

But I digress. I suggest you read and use the resources you'll find on the page entitled How to learn a language, which I wrote with people like you and I in mind. If instead you'd rather learn the language once you're there, you'll be wanting to study a language abroad.

This of course in no way replaces learning a language but I received the following question from a reader: What are the best language translation gadgets on the market? I didn't think much of those in the beginning but I'm now becoming converted to their use. They don't replace language but they certainly do help if you're just trying to get around and don't speak a word of the language.

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