Learn Hindi
Devanagari is the most learnable of the Indian scripts and it is worth the week it takes, because it is phonetic in a way English is not: a Hindi word tells you how to say it. iLexiBox begins with the letters and then with the matras, the vowel marks that attach to them, since it is the matras and not the letters that stop most beginners reading.
Start at Devanagari
The Hindi on-ramp is written by hand, not generated, and it is 210 cards long. Every card is spoken in a recorded Hindi voice, and what you get right is scheduled for review rather than shown again at random. This is the shorter, starter size of on-ramp; most languages here have about 480 cards.
- 44letters
- 10digits
- 16pronunciation rules
- 100core words
- 20everyday phrases
- 20sentences
Three of the pronunciation cards, exactly as the on-ramp teaches them:
- का — the long-a matra ा is written AFTER the consonantकाम — work
- कि — the short-i matra ि is written BEFORE the consonant but spoken after itकिताब — book
- की — the long-ee matra ी is written after the consonantपानी — water
Your first Hindi phrases
The first phrase and sentence cards of the on-ramp, each spoken in a recorded voice:
- आप कैसे हैं? aap KAI-se hain — how are you?
- बहुत धन्यवाद ba-HUT DHAN-ya-vaad — thank you very much
- कोई बात नहीं ko-EE BAAT na-heen — no problem / you’re welcome
- मैं छात्र हूँ। MAIN CHHAA-tra hoon — I am a student.
- मेरा नाम आना है। ME-raa NAAM AA-naa hai — My name is Ana.
Then material that does not run out
Above the on-ramp sit the practice path (A1 to C2), Make a text at your level and the album: more than 2,700 photographs, each captioned and spoken in Hindi. Hindi has practice and tools, not lessons — the only course on iLexiBox is the full English course (how each part works).
What Hindi actually costs a beginner
A matra can be written after its consonant, or above it, or before it — and it is always SAID after, so the short-i mark sits to the left of a letter that comes first in the mouth. The eye resists that for a while. Underneath it sit two distinctions English does not make and Hindi does: aspiration, where क and ख are different words rather than the same word said harder, and the retroflex series ट ठ ड ढ, made with the tongue curled back to the roof of the mouth. Neither can be read off the page, so each is a card with a recorded Hindi voice.
The full English course, A1–C1 →