Outline of Hindi Grammar With Exercises by R. S. McGregor

by R.S. McGregor

This book has a twofold first to provide a concise presentation of the essential grammar of modern Hindi, with graded exercises, which brings beginners as quickly as possible to the point where they can read modern prose with profit; and secondly, to serve as reference for those consolidating their grasp of the language. It is therefore, of interest to students beginning courses in Hindi and those who have already learned some. People planning to visit India for business of pleasure will also find it useful, as colloquial vocabulary and style receive equally detailed attention as the more formal written style. The material is presented in roman transliteration as well as in the Indian script, so that the beginner can work through the book unimpeded by script problems, while still enjoying the advantage of contact with the script from the outset. Additions to the third edition include a new set of listening and reading exercises and grammatical index.

Genres: Language

Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

Reviews

[D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been slowly working my way through this book. I would give it five stars, except that I found that it was too advanced until after I took some Hindi tutoring for a few months. Now I'm using it again, and I'm having an easier time reading the Devanagari script and doing the exercises.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a useful book, provided that one knows what to expect. Though divided into lessons, this is not a typical textbook of Hindi. One will not find here the everyday vocabulary and dialogues that make it possible to actively use Hindi with its speakers. Instead, each lesson covers some aspect of Hindi grammar, describes it in greater depth than in most textbooks, and then gives a series of reading passages along with an ample vocabulary used in those reading passages.

I had some Sanskrit under my belt and I was curious what happened to that language so many centuries later. This book was nearly ideal for that purpose: I could quickly get up to speed with the highly innovative noun and verbal morphology of Hindi compared to its ancestor, the wealth of postpositions that have replaced old Indic flexion, and the significant number of Perso-Arabic loans even in Hindi itself (let alone its sister variety Urdu). There’s even an introductory chapter on phonology that covers the whole sound system, and on the Hindi version of the devanagari script. In the lessons, the reading passages themselves are given only in Devanagari, but in the grammatical description and vocabulary, Hindi is shown in both devanagari and transliteration.

One major drawback of this book, originally published in 1972 and reissued in expanded form in 1995, is that reference is made to supplementary audio, but this was only available on cassettes. Hindi speakers may also view the language of this book, based originally on mid-twentieth-century teaching materials, as outdated. Nevertheless, this book serves as an example of a good and rigorous language-learning book.