Hindi for beginners
If you are starting from zero, you do not need an overview but an order. This page gives you one — six steps, each with its grammar topic, the matching words and a reason why it sits where it does.
Why an order and not a list
This site has 82 grammar topics. For someone just starting out, that is not an offer but a wall: everything looks equally important, and the obvious way in — starting at the top — leads into the tense system before a single sentence is in place.
So the order below is not a sorting of the material but a recommendation, and it follows one rule: every step must make one more sentence possible that you could not say before. Anything that does not — however correct it may be — comes later.
Three things first
- Twenty minutes on six days beats two hours on one. That is not a lecture but the reason this site has a daily goal: revision works through intervals, and you need more than one interval.
- You will not learn pronunciation here. This site explains and tests, both in writing. Speaking and listening are learnt with people or with recordings — the site is no substitute for that and does not try to be.
- Mistakes are the point of practice, not its failure. Whatever you get wrong comes back tomorrow; whatever sticks, only in five weeks. If you only practise what you already know, you do not move forward.
The first six steps
Devanagari first. Every consonant carries a short a unless a vowel sign says otherwise, and every vowel has two shapes: a full letter at the start of a word and a small sign after a consonant — इ and ि, ए and े. A few days with the letters and every word on this site can be read — and the transliteration under each one can be switched off as soon as it is no longer needed.
To go with it: Greetings and set phrases — 35 words.
The verb comes last, and the first verb is “to be”: मैं छात्र हूँ, “I am a student”, literally “I student am”. Its form follows the subject — हूँ, है, हो, हैं — and हैं also stands for a single person you speak of with respect.
To go with it: People and the family — 40 words.
Every noun is masculine or feminine, and the gender is learnt with the word: कमरा, room, is masculine, मेज़, table, feminine. It matters from the first sentence, because the adjective follows it: बड़ा कमरा, बड़ी मेज़.
To go with it: The home — 35 words.
Where English has a preposition in front of a noun, Hindi has a postposition after it. The first one is “of”: राम का घर, “Ram’s house” — and का changes with the thing owned, not with the owner: राम की बहन, “Ram’s sister”.
To go with it: Pronouns, questions and postpositions — 30 words.
Every verb is listed with -ना on the end: बोलना, to speak. Take it off and the stem is left, and the everyday present is the stem with -ता, -ती or -ते and a form of “to be”: मैं हिंदी बोलता हूँ. A woman says बोलती हूँ — in Hindi the verb has a gender too.
To go with it: The first verbs — 45 words.
The past holds the one real surprise. With a verb that takes an object, the subject gets ने and the verb agrees with the object instead: मैंने चाय पी, “I drank tea”, feminine because चाय is — whoever did the drinking.
To go with it: Food and drink — 45 words.
And after that?
After these six steps you can manage simple sentences in the present and the past, questions and the first few hundred words. That is the point at which an order is no longer needed: from here, the way forward depends on what you need the language for.
All 35 topics of level A1 are on the A1 page; if you would rather practise straight away than read, start with the daily dose — it decides for itself what comes up today.