Category Archives: Hindi

Ideas from ArabicPod.net fro ISpeakHindi.com

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I’ve been running the ISpeakHindi.com – Learn Hindi site for over 4 years now.  I am constantly on the look out for ideas to incorporate.  I have quite a list, probably enough to keep going for a long time.  But today I get an email from ArabicPod announcing that they have a new lesson: #432 Favorite Flower:

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Clicking on the link takes you to the lesson on the site:

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You can not do anything other than vote on the lesson without signing up.  Also, they have a random word on the right:

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This would be an easy thing to do on ISpeakHindi.com to add a random word to the right.  It would be a good compliment to the master 4 Hindi words a day tool.   I was thinking of adding a random vocabulary question to the side as well.  Also, maybe other languages exercises as well.

Also from the list of lessons page: www.arabicpod.net/learnarabic/Intermediate there is this link:

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Clicking on that gives you a list of countries and people that have Skype Ids:

www.arabicpod.net/communicate

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Clicking on “View all Users” gives:

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The one improvement would be if it could show their Skype status.  But I think this is only possible if the person allows for you to be on their friends list. 

Ideas that I want to implement:

  1. Add random word to the left side
  2. Add random vocabulary quiz
  3. Add random question quiz (take the questions associated with the lessons and allow for people to answer them.  It can direct them to the episode with the answer.)
  4. Add “Skype ID” to user’s profile
  5. Add a view that will let visitors see members based upon the presence of the SkypID.

Hindi lessons reviews and Hindi resources

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Beginner Hindi #005 – Consonants – Part 4 (July 5, 2007)

Beginner Hindi #006 – Consonants – Part 5 (July 6, 2007)

Removed the “off to Japan” post..  Made sense at the time, but doesn’t make sense to keep it now..

List of Hindi resources (July 25, 2007)

Reviewing ISpeakHindi Lesson from the first part of July and planning the future…

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Beginner Hindi #001 – Vowels (July 1, 2007) (sound level needs to be increased)

Beginner Hindi #002 – Consonants – Part 1 (July 2, 2007) (sound level needs to be increased)

Deleted “Links” episode (July 3, 2007).. It had no recording and no written content.

Discussion Groups for Hindi Learners (July 3, 2007)  List of links to other resources on the internet

 

Beginner Hindi #003 – Consonants – Part 2 (July 3, 2007) (sound level needs to be increased)

Beginner Hindi #004 – Consonants – Part 3 (July 4, 2007) (sound level needs to be increased)

 

This reminds me of a project that I started on last year, but have not completed.  A Hindi letter and sound quiz program.  It randomly chooses between 6 vowels and three different speakers.  It shows the speaker and plays the sound,  the learner has to choose from among the 6 letters.

www.ispeakhindi.com/quiz/flashcards/sounds/sound_symbol_quiz.php?group_id=2

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What I want to do is to create a library of speakers saying each of these 6 vowels:

अ आ इ ई उ ऊ

The program should introduce the first two: अ and आ.

Then quiz the user on these two.  When the user can get each one right 5 times in a row without getting it wrong, then introduce the next two:

इ ई

Quiz on these two by themselves.  After they get them right 5 times in a row without getting it wrong, then quiz them a few times on a combination of these four.

Continue likewise with उ ऊ

Then introduce the first two consonants क  and ख.  Have the user get each of these right 5 times in a row.  Then introduce how the letters go together with the vowels.  क् + आ = का, etc.  I think this should be a top priority getting this functionality on the site.  Once people understand all the letters, then it will be much easier for them to learn.

Listening to all the episodes on ISpeakHindi.com

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Today I am starting a project that will probably take me several months to finish. I am going to listen to all the episodes on ISpeakHindi.com. In many cases, I plan to improve them and respond to the comments. Some I might leave but redo. and others might have to come down. Here is where I need to pick up tomorrow:
www.ispeakhindi.com/2007/07/01/beginner-hindi-001-vowels/

Looking for a way to create PDFs programmatically that have Hindi

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Trying to automate the creation of PDFs with the Hindi flashcards for www.ISpeakHindi.com.  I am open to anything that can run on Windows or Linux.    I prefer something that would run on Linux so I can put it on the webserver.  So I am focused on looking at solution in PHP or Ruby.

I found a wonderful PDF creation library for PHP, but it does not support unicode:

www.fpdf.org/

I found a “not quite ready for PRO” version that has been internationalized

acko.net/blog/ufpdf

I could not get it to work with the Hindi characters, i.e. क ख ग घ etc.

I found PDF::Writer for Ruby, but still no luck..

In the process of looking for this, I found this Ruby on Rails screen cast in Hindi:

www.fromjaipur.com/?p=4

Added English-Hindi dictionary

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I added a English-Hindi dictionary to ISpeakHindi.com that I found in the public domain.  You can see it at: www.ispeakhindi.com/dictionary/sa.htm

New project to help people learn Hindi

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I’ve started a new project to help people learn Hindi.  It is a daily podcast that covers various Hindi topics.  It was inspired by the wonderful www.JapanesePod101.com podcast.

The new site is www.ISpeakHindi.com

I Speak Hindi will feature a podcast, learning materials that can be downloaded and printed, and online learning tools to help you learn Hindi.  I have been working on it for almost 2 weeks now, and it has been a very, very interesting experience.  Please check out www.ISpeakHindi.com and let me know what you think.

 

Most popular page on this site

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The number one page on this site is my “Hindi Resources on the web”

www.gadgetnate.com/index.php/hindi/hindi-resources-on-the-web/

And the number one place I get hits from is India.  I find this to be pretty amazing!

 

I was thinking about doing a daily blog like the www.japanesepod101.com/ but around Hindi instead.  My mother-in-law is a Hindi teacher.  It could be a lot of fun.  And I’m already getting a lot of hits for content like this.  Maybe it would be a good way to learn Hindi, provide a service, increase the number of hits my site gets, earn some additional ad revenue (which is really, really nice!), and potentially have some value added services.