What are the best apps for learning the Hindi Alphabet?
As a Growing Participator aspiring to be conversational in Hindi Urdu, I wanted to learn the Hindi alphabet to improve my pronunciation and engage more deeply in this language. I wondered which of the apps available for free were the most fun and effective and found that the following are the best apps for learning the Hindi Alphabet.
#1 Duo Lingo: By far the most popular and well-known language learning app is Duo Lingo. I would wager that most people reading this blog have spent some time using this app to learn a foreign language as it is available in most major languages and has millions of users. It is great for getting started in learning the Hindi alphabet because it starts with the letters and allows you to move ahead to higher and higher levels by practicing for a few minutes a day as you listen and read common Hindi phrases. It is free and easy to access. When used in conjunction with other more immersive language learning methods it can help give consistent exposure to the Hindi sentence structure, reinforcing the grammar patterns of everyday Hindi.
#2 Drops: While this app is not as well known as others, it was definitely one of my favorites as I started learning Hindi. Drops is similar to Duo Lingo in that it starts with the Hindi alphabet but it differs in that it focuses more on introducing and reviewing various vocabulary sets by combining audio, images of each word, and the words in Hindi alphabet. This multi-modal and game-like method (similar to the Growing Participator Approach used at our program, Launch India) is a fun and motivating way to spend just five minutes a day growing both your Hindi Urdu vocabulary in combination with consistent exposure to Hindi script.
#3 Hindi Letters: One of the trickiest parts of learning to speak a new language is training your mouth to form sounds that you are unaccustomed to saying. Where in your mouth are these sounds being made? This Hindi Letters app helps clarify these questions by grouping all letters into their linguistic categories such as gutturals, palatals, retroflex, dental, labial and conjunct. This organized classification can help distinguish between sounds and therefore help you to improve your pronunciation and sound more like a local! This app also allows you to trace each letter to begin developing your writing skills. Audio for each sound is included with images and audio of the letter being used in a Hindi word as well. It is a well made app with lots of useful components great for helping you get started!
#4 Hindi Letters Flash Cards by Jagruti Jain: Like the name of this app implies, this digital library of Hindi vowels, consonants and numerals allows you to practice saying each sound you see then check with the audio to test and refine your pronunciation. Here you can also grow in fluency of all the possible variations of a consonant when combined with each vowel. This is a great resource for learners just getting started in reading Hindi Script who need a clear and easy-to-use reference library of all sounds and symbols.
#5 L-Lingo Learn Hindi: Start reading whole words and sentences in Hindi Script. Once you have grown to be able to identify individual sounds and letters, this app helps you put them together by combining images, audio and Hindi script. It starts with a lesson introducing vocabulary sets across these multi-modal forms and then moves into quizzes over these concepts. While it is not the fanciest of apps, it provides a helpful bridge between understanding the meaning of a spoken word and being able to identify and read it in Hindi Script.
Conclusion
Hindi Script (known as Devanagari) is used to write Hindi, Marathi, and Nepali. Knowing how to read this script provides access to the fifth most spoken language in the world. It also helps improve your pronunciation as you learn to understand and speak Hindi. There are many different apps developed to help improve your reading and writing skills in Hindi Script. Out of all of those options, our top 5 free apps for learning Hindi Script Alphabet are Duo Lingo, Drops, Hindi Letters, Hindi Letters Flash Cards and L-Lingo Learn Hindi.