Jiwon's Log (Hindi, German et al)

[Jiwon]

What. I mean, amazing! Have fun with that one!

Es freut mich, dich wieder auf dem Forum zu sehen.

I finished all the exercises for Chapter 8 and read all the conversations of Chapter 9. I find that I don't have enough time to post daily entries into my log AND do the actual studying part - and if I had to choose, I would spend more time doing the real studying. Maybe keeping a Hindi diary on my log will give me more motivation to update my log more frequently. This worked for me with my old German log, so I should really consider it as an option.

Right now I am preparing for two concerts at the end of the month. I sing in the choir for Gustav Mahler's 2nd Symphony on the 21st, and I have a wind ensemble concert as a euphonium player. I am carrying my Teach Yourself Complete Hindi with me all the time, to squeeze in some study time whenever I get a chance, but it is quite difficult to acquire vocabulary this way. Maybe I should start using flash cards.

[jeff_lindqvist]

A belated welcome to the forum, Jiwon! I remember you from HTLAL. Hindi and Welsh - what a combination!

[Jiwon]

A belated welcome to the forum, Jiwon! I remember you from HTLAL. Hindi and Welsh - what a combination!

Thanks for the welcome. I also remember you from the old place.
I am only 'touching' the Welsh courses as a form of meditation that takes me away from all the hassle of my daily lives and more serious language learning, which at the moment is Hindi.

I seem to face some difficulties with Hindi orthography and phonology. The first thing that irritates me is that I have a difficult time distinguishing between short and long I's and U's. I noticed this because when I learn a word, its spelling in Devanagari does not come to me naturally. It seems that I learn the Hindi words by their sounds or transliterations, and allocate the appropriate letters to those sound values. And since I have a difficult time distinguishing short and long I's and U's I end up making spelling mistakes here and there.

So there are two problems I should try and overcome:
1. Dinstinguishing short and long vowels, especially I's and U's.
2. Acquiring Hindi vocabulary in Devanagari, not just in the sound I think I am hearing.


I did half of the exercises for Chapter 9, and while doing translation exercises, I ran into some problems with Hindi postpositions.

1. As a translation for "One day, I will tell you the full story", I wrote:
"एक दिन मैं आप से पूरी कहानी बताऊँगा।"
But the answer key says I should use को instead of से.
I know some vowels that express "speech" use से to indicate the person being addressed in the speech, so it was quite confusing to note that को is used in this instance. I should look up similar verbs (बताना, बोलना, पूछना) and make a list of postpositions that go with them.

2. The question was "I know that he will not answer my letters"
My answer was: मुझे मालूम है कि वह मेरी चि़ट्ठियों को जवाब नहीं देगा।
The answer key says it should be: मुझे मालूम है कि वह मेरी चि़ट्ठियों का जवाब नहीं देगा।
I wonder whether my answer is grammatically incorrect or awkward in comparison to the model answer. Maybe it is something I have yet to come across, but I would really appreciate it if a Hindi speaker could explain any differences in the two sentences.

[desitrader]

It's not my mother tongue, but I'll give it a go

'Ko' is only used to indicate accusative or dative cases as in German, and it follows the object.

'Ka', 'ke' and 'ki' indicate possession and they follow the possessor. When the object being possessed is masculine, it's 'ka'. When the object is a masculine plural, it's 'ke'. When the object is feminine or a feminine plural, it's 'ki'.

So, in summary, 'ko' is completely different from 'ka'-'ke'-'ki'.

[Jiwon]

It's not my mother tongue, but I'll give it a go

'Ko' is only used to indicate accusative or dative cases as in German, and it follows the object.

'Ka', 'ke' and 'ki' indicate possession and they follow the possessor. When the object being possessed is masculine, it's 'ka'. When the object is a masculine plural, it's 'ke'. When the object is feminine or a feminine plural, it's 'ki'.

So, in summary, 'ko' is completely different from 'ka'-'ke'-'ki'.

Yes, I know what they actually mean, but I wanted someone to explain whether my answer to the translation exercise is also a valid variation of the answer given in the answer key of the text book.

[desitrader]

It's not my mother tongue, but I'll give it a go

'Ko' is only used to indicate accusative or dative cases as in German, and it follows the object.

'Ka', 'ke' and 'ki' indicate possession and they follow the possessor. When the object being possessed is masculine, it's 'ka'. When the object is a masculine plural, it's 'ke'. When the object is feminine or a feminine plural, it's 'ki'.

So, in summary, 'ko' is completely different from 'ka'-'ke'-'ki'.

Yes, I know what they actually mean, but I wanted someone to explain whether my answer to the translation exercise is also a valid variation of the answer given in the answer key of the text book.

I'd say no, it's not a valid variation simply because in this particular case the relationship between चि़ट्ठियों and जवाब is that of possession (even though it feels illogical) rather than subject and object in an accusative / dative case.

[Jiwon]

I'd say no, it's not a valid variation simply because in this particular case the relationship between चि़ट्ठियों and जवाब is that of possession (even though it feels illogical) rather than subject and object in an accusative / dative case.

The reason why I ask is because the question was "I know that he will not answer my letters", where letters are definitely the object of the sentence.
According the text bok, the answer should be: मुझे मालूम है कि वह मेरी चि़ट्ठियों का जवाब नहीं देगा। which uses the possessive form of the letters.

On the hand my answer was: मुझे मालूम है कि वह मेरी चि़ट्ठियों को जवाब नहीं देगा।

This is the reason why I am asking you, is my sentence a valid translation of the English sentence in the question, or is the form with "का" the only acceptable way of conveying the idea that "he will not answer my letters".

And actually, in looking up the old grammar book, I did find the answer to my question - that it is more customary to use the possessive to qualify nouns, while other postpositions for normative, dative, accusative will usually not be used if the phrase is qualifying a noun, rather than a verbal action.

[Jiwon]

In the past few days, I really ran out of time, and decided to focus on my studies rather than update my log. This resulted in a rather quick procession through the chapters.

Teach Yourself Complete Hindi

Chapter 9 (future tense)
- exercises completed.

Chapter 10 (subjunctive)
- dialogues studied
- exercises completed

Chapter 11 (past participle)
- dialogues read

So far, I find the approach of this book to be superior to the Korean text books used in university classes. Many Hindi text books written in Korea tend to be grammar-heavy, and try to get you to digest as much of basic grammar as possible in the beginning. So for example, if you learn the future tense, you will also learn about the subjunctive in the same chapter, and also various conditional sentences and subtle differences in nuance among various sentence constructions - all in a single example text in a single chapter. If the chapter addresses postpositions, you will be given all the basic verb-postposition combinations that must be learnt by heart, rather than learned in a context with reference to the textual material of the chapter.

On the other hand, TYCH's approach takes each grammatical concept step by step, fusing it with the plot of each chapter. This gives me more time and exercises to digest the new concepts.

However, the very same feature is its own shortcoming too. TYCH does not supply encyclopedic tables of grammatical systems. So, when I do the exercises, I often must use sentence constructions that have not been taught in the chapter. It is even more tricky when it comes to postpositions. Should I use से (from) or को (to) with मिलना (to meet)? Is it मेरे खयाल से (from my opinion) or मेरे खयाल में (in my opinion). This makes me thisnk that after finishing all 18 chapters of TYCH, I should definitely revisit my old Korean textbooks for a more complete explanation of grammatical elements.

I have also started to make flashcards for new words, as the amount of new words given in each chapter was growing at such a rate, that I could not learn them all merely by writing out a few times.

[Jiwon]

A quick update on what I have been doing.

For the past two Saturdays, I went for interviews at law schools. I still haven't completely decided whether I want to pursue a career in law or start on my MA in Indian Studies. But I applied for law schools anyway, since I didn't want to miss the chance of applying this year. I don't know what the results may be, but I will have to spend more time thinking about my future life before the enrollment deadline.

On Monday I sang at the Seoul Arts Center (the most prestigious concert hall in Korea) as a chorus member for Gustav Mahler's 2nd Symphony. It was a great way to mark the final semester of undergraduate life I guess.

And today we held the Indian Night at the department of Asian Languages and Civilizations. Since we only have 5 students enrolled in the Indian program, we were encouraged to bring all our friends. It was good to wear my Kurta for once, meet all my adhyaapikaas and professor jis, chit chat in Hindi with caterers and some Indian guests. This definitely gave me some more motivation to brush up on my Hindi. It's always nice to get that "You speak Hindi?" from Indians who don't expect a Korean will speak any Hindi.

Regarding my studies, I have finished Chapter 11, read all the material for Chapters 12 and 13, and started working on exercises for Chapter 12. It is getting quite tedious to work on the exercises, as grammatical elements discussed in these chapters are ones that I am already familiar with and I have already had a lot of practice on them.

And tomorrow I have yet another concert, as a euphonium player in a wind ensemble. Better go and get some rest.

[qeadz]

Do you practice your other languages much? Notably your forums posts are, of course, English and showing you have a very fluent level at that. I'm wondering here about your Mandarin and Japanese - do you keep those going while also studying Hindi?