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Why isn’t Hindi a "popular" language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6772 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 25 of 197 22 December 2006 at 4:33am | IP Logged | |||||
It would depend on how hands-on the management needed to be, I suppose. Managers being able to directly communicate with the employees sounds more efficient, instead going through two layers of language translation. They might bring on Hindi-Japanese translators too, or hire Japanese-speaking Indians to management positions. On a somewhat related note, I read a recent report that said 15 million additional Indians need to learn other European languages (French, German, etc) in order to meet current market demand for service-related industries and outsourcing to India. Getting everyone to use a third intermediary language isn't always ideal, it seems. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7167 days ago 487 posts - 503 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 26 of 197 22 December 2006 at 10:04am | IP Logged | |||||
On an even less related note, in the UK (& US I imagine) there's lots of cold calling from centres based in India. Here in France, the cold callers sounds pretty French to me, and I guess they'll continue to sound that way until those 15m Indians learn those other European languages! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6947 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 27 of 197 22 December 2006 at 10:54am | IP Logged | |||||
With English Indians have considerable advantage over many others, with French they don't, so it's hard to see why such a project would be seriously contemplated. Edited by frenkeld on 22 December 2006 at 10:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| draco Bilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 6670 days ago 11 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, SpanishB1 Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 28 of 197 22 December 2006 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I grew up speaking Hindi/Urdu since I was born and raised in Pakistan and my parents were born and raised in India. The main reason why it's not as important in India or Pakistan as Mandarin is in China is that English is widely spoken in both countries (since they were former British colonies). The language of instruction in my school was English and I can communicate in English with the fluency of a native speaker. If you visit the main cities (e.g. Mumbai, Delhi, Karachi etc) you won't have too many problems if you speak English. This is because most educated people speak at least some English and most of the signs are in English (in addition to Hindi/Urdu signs). I believe that the Philipines is very similar in this regard since it is a former American colony.
Nevertheless, if you were visit the smaller towns/villages, a knowledge of Hindi/Urdu is certainly valuable as people in smaller towns/villages cannot speak much English. Moreover the locals are very appreciative of people who have made any attempt to speak their language. Knowledge of the language also allows you to immerse yourself in a culture that is very different from Western culture as well as most cultures in the Far East (Orient). 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| orion Senior Member United States Joined 7025 days ago 622 posts - 678 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 29 of 197 24 December 2006 at 12:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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Which script is the more difficult to learn, Urdu or Hindi? They both look pretty challenging.
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| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7167 days ago 487 posts - 503 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 30 of 197 24 December 2006 at 4:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hey Draco, weren't you looking into digitizing a DLI Spanish course? ;-)
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| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6573 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 31 of 197 24 December 2006 at 5:53am | IP Logged | |||||
They are both relatively easy. Hindi is more phonetically faithful, but Urdu is more succinct and feels less redundant and crowded. Urdu is an Abjad (consonant alphabet) and Devanajari is an Abugida (syllabry), so they are both slightly more difficult to get used to than say Cyrillic (which is a normal alphabet) but they are nowhere near as challenging as Kanji. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| draco Bilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 6670 days ago 11 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, SpanishB1 Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 32 of 197 24 December 2006 at 11:39am | IP Logged | |||||
If you already know Arabic, Urdu is trivial, since it is composed of the Arabic alphabet plus about 5-10 more letters. These scripts are not ideographic and are thus quite simple to learn (nothing Like Kanji or Chinese script). The only thing that make them slightly more difficult than other scripts is that the alphabet forms can change based on their position in the word and certain alphabet sequences are written as ligatures. Edited by draco on 24 December 2006 at 7:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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