Re: Rating Languages

> >Until now, the only language that resisted even an approach from me was Hindi,
> >and it's the alphabet that put me off. Devanagari is beautiful, but I cannot
> >recognize a single letter out of it, how hard I try to. Even the Arabic script
> >is simpler for me (and I'm not talking about the Armenian alphabet which looks
> >to me like a single letter repeated X times). Maybe if I could learn it in
> >transcription I would discover that it's not that difficult.
>
> Hmm... the Arabic alphabet is one I've never really learned to read well:
> too many of the letters are similar (especially ghayn and fa, in the middle
> of a word), and the small print in some of the books I've tried to use
> doesn't help. I haven't even tried learning to read Arabic text without
> vowels. But I didn't have as much trouble with Devanagari.
Devanagari really isn't all that hard. :)

I think it's easier than Arabic, but that's just me.

You really can't try to jump into it, though.  The best thing to do is learn
a couple of letters, and a vowel sign, and then learn some words that
use only those letters.  Then learn another letter, and learn some more
words.  After that, learn another vowel sign, and then you'll soon be
able to read quite a lot-- but you won't be overwhelming yourself with
a lot of letters all at once.

Try http://www.ukindia.com and go to "Learn to Read Hindi."  Their lessons
are a little choppy but I think they might be helpful.

Of course, if the only thing putting you off is the alphabet, and if you
already can read the Arabic script, try hitting it from the Urdu direction,
rather than Hindi. (At the colloquial level, they're virtually the same).