Any Bengali language learner here? [এখানে এমন কেউ আছেন যিনি বাংলা ভাষা শিখছেন ? ]

[7APTARSHI]

I am a native Bengali speaker from India and most probably the first native Bengalee here. If you have any interest in learning the language seriously and if you already know a few basic things, feel free to contact me.

[malach]

I'll answer the title question - yes.

[Deinonysus]

I'm not learning Bengali now, although I would love to learn it someday.

Did you have an easy time learning Hindi with Bengali as your native language? And how would you compare this to your experience of starting French with a strong level of English? Would you say that Bengali and Hindi are more similar than English and French, less similar, or difficult to say?

[Speakeasy]

I'm not learning Bengali now, although I would love to learn it someday…

A couple of years ago, there was a brief discussion of the resources available for studying Bengali …

Bengali (Bengala) alphabet
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=17&p=34486#p34486

[7APTARSHI]

I'm not learning Bengali now, although I would love to learn it someday.

Did you have an easy time learning Hindi with Bengali as your native language? And how would you compare this to your experience of starting French with a strong level of English? Would you say that Bengali and Hindi are more similar than English and French, less similar, or difficult to say?

Deinonysus ,

Answer to question 1. I never learnt Hindi in my life. My languages in school (12 years, standard 1-12) and also college level(03 years Bachelor's degree) were only Bengali and English. But there is an interesting fact in India. We have our Bollywood film industry and from our very childhood we grow up with those Hindi TV channels, songs, series and films etc etc. During my childhood(1990-2000), American or British entertainment and internet was mostly not available (except some scooby-doo, tom and jerry cartoons). Some families had cable tv connections; they could watch foreign*(read:English) films. So, what happens, we grab those Hindi terms, words, sentences easily.

Now, it is not like English and French. It is more like 'Italian and French' you might say.
For example : If you know 'io mangio', you also know what is meant by 'je mange' or io parlo ~ je parle etc. etc.

or Spanish ~ French ~ Italian : libro ~ livre ~ libro
or Spanish ~ French ~ Italian : mano ~ main ~ mano

So we(some of us) learn it without knowing to read or write the alphabets even.
For example :
Let me explain with a sentence in Imperative mood -

Give me that (something)!
In Bengali, it is - "otaa aamaake daao" ;
In Hindi it is - "uo haamko do" ;

So, you can see the similarity. In case of numbers:
'2' - 'do'(Hindi) [like 'though' in English] - 'dui'(bengali)

So , you can see it is quite similar in grammar, vocabs and many other things. So, I can basically talk about any day-to-day thing in Hindi with a Hindi speaking man without even learning it academically like the Europeans who know those Romance languages.

But, there is something more. My father was sent to learn Hindi for 6 months during his job period in most probably 1998. At that time he brought back some Learn Hindi books from office with him and while he practised writing I also learnt those alphabets and things. So, I can read almost 85% Hindi. Now, it is not that Hindi books/schools/people are not available where I live. But, the fact is: we never wanted or tried to. Because when you can communicate with a Hindi speaking people without any knowledge of writing or reading it, you don't think about taking that next step ( or maybe it was my lack of interest...). I still do not invest any time in studying Hindi, but anything I hear or watch(songs,movies,advertisements etc.) I can understand totally.

And the main problem that I face is speaking. I grew up studying in a Bengali medium school. There they never taught any accent. So, I speak English with Bengali accent. Neither American, nor British. So, when I am trying to read French, I am doing that with Bengali accent too and imitating an accent seems to be very difficult(most difficult) to me.

All these views and opinions are my own.

Hope I have been able to answer your queries.

Feel free to reply me back