How to Learn English Grammar if You Speak Hindi

Proper understanding of English grammar for the Hindi-speaker is a must have in many personal and professional environments. While some points of grammatical difference are navigated with little to no difficulty, others provide places that can be constant sticking points. These include but are not limited to tense usage, ordering of the parts of speech and the correct use of particles and articles. Constant practice and self-encouragement will guarantee your ultimate success.

Instructions

    • 1

      Emphasize the use of the definite article "the" as there is no such mechanism in Hindi/Urdu. This is why native Hindi speakers tend to inject an indefinite article (a, an or one) when the definite is required. Recognize that the definite article should be used when gesturing towards a known or pre-identified noun and that indefinite articles apply to more abstract grammatical circumstances.

    • 2

      Remember that English has interrogative particles (do, does). These, again, do not exist in Hindi; this is why questions formed by some native Hindi speakers in English rely on intonation rather than using the particles and actually asking "do you?" or "does she" which is the truly correct way to ask.

    • 3

      Practice word order repeatedly. While normal English sentences flow "subject-verb-object, Hindi usually follows a "subject-object-verb" pattern. Break out of your natural habit of applying this to English sentence formation.

    • 4

      Notice that the preposition (to, at, for, and so on) comes before the actual qualified noun. For example, "the man goes to the park." In Hindi the preposition "to" would likely follow "the park" as opposed to the English ordering. As the Frankfurt International School states, in Hindi, these devices are more like "postpositions" than prepositions.

    • 5

      Work on tense usage. In English, present continuous phrasing (I am moving) is used to describe current, ongoing or immediate actions whereas present simple is used to explain habitual practices (I work every Monday). This confuses many Hindi speakers and the grammatical sensibilities need to be reversed.

    • 6

      Don't worry about learning gendered (masculine or feminine) nouns and adjectives in English because they don't exist; except outside very specific nouns and usage (actor (m) / actress (f), steward/ stewardess) and you will learn them in your own good time.

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