Meera

I think knowing any langauge no matter how little or how much awesome. I also don't think there is ever too many. I don't think anyone can learn 20 languages fluently but even just knowng basics can be good. I think the more you know of anything the better.

Bengali is probably the most useless one I've learned. However I have dabbled in some pretty useless ones like Armenian, Azeri, Tibetan, Assamese, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi and Tajik People tell me Hindi is useless but I will argue otherwise. 

Hi Kotro, i took Arabic for four years in college (probably going on to do more, I wanted to major in Hindi but unforuently the only colleges that had it were extreamly expensive and far away), But I really did enjoy it, however it is quite frustrating at times, especially the grammer and prounciation. It is easy in the beggining but gets difficult as you go on. I suggested learning the script first because it is pretty much the eaisest part and knowing it will help you a lot. I have to tell you I'm not fluent in Arabic and it is a very difficult language to learn but it isn't impossible and is worth learning.

There aren't really any sites, but Colloquial Tamil book does this well. It teaches only colloquial and not the formal writtern Tamil

Hi Hedonologist, your question is kind of difficult to answer. There are english words that would sound more natural to Hindi speaker than the actual Hindi words themselves, but unless you have a feel for the language, its kind of hard to say which ones. There is also Indian english which has usage diffirently than American english. Some rules I go by are that a lot of modern words are used in English, for examples things like office, hospital, bank, train, and things like this are mostly said in English. I've heard many scientific words are usueally said in english also. It depends you really need a feel for the language first, I would suggest learning proper Hindi/Urdu first and then gradually start throwing in the english words. They usueally give the common english words used in Hindi phrasebooks also.

This is my first seeing the Hindi language, which looks quite interesting. The writing is similar to Thai, which I think it is difficult to learn, right? Thank you for the info!

The Hindi script is not difficult to learn. I learned in about two weeks. Thai is based off the brahmic scripts but its quite diffirent and more complex than devnagari (the Hindi script). If you want to learn the Hindi script I can give you links for it

Hi Kotro! My suggesstion is too start with the script. The script isn't too hard and having that as a basis would be really good. Also I owuld start with MSA and worry about the dialects latter. Some good books to start with are Living Language Arabic, Mastering Arabic and Complete Arabic. Also Alf, Baa Taa, is a pretty good book for learning the script. There are some good links in here:

http://linguaholic.com/study-arabic/arabic-links/

thanks so much, great sites! :grin:

This is kind of off topic but not totally so I will ask it here. Do people still say alvida and phir milenge? Also when I watch Hindi serials, when they are saying bye to each other I usually hear ram-ram or sita-ram or sometimes like hare Krishna. I understand what they mean, but do people still use these in India or is dying out like Namaste? I hardly ever here this in films, it is always in the serials.

Hello yurithebest1, I have Arabic TV channels at home and watch them a lot. My favorite channel is ART because it has a variety of shows from all over the Arab world.

Thanks so much BWL!

haan bahut udaas hai. :cry: :cry:koi log nahin hai

Hello guys, I was wondering if anyone had any links for learning Tagalog? I am a little interested in the language because I have some Filipino friends and would like to know at least some phrases. I tried searching on yahoo and google and nothing really useful came up. Thanks in advance!

Okay thanks guys! I will start with Hirgana!

If you were to start learning Japanese, which one should you start with?

Shurkan ya IssamH!

Hi Pink Glitter and Canoe, I get this reaction all the time when I say I am learning Hindi. People stare at me weird and ask me, "Why would you want to learn that?" People even go as far to say, "Why don't you put your time in Chinese/Spanish? It would be much more useful." I also get racist comments for why I shouldn't learn it and I also get told how ugly the language sounds every day and also the most famous "but they all speak English." If you aren't doing a language like Spanish or French people really don't understand.

I'm more keen to improve my spoken Tamil rather than written. I think in Malaysia and Singapore people have an accent that is closer to that spoken in Madurai and the central districts rather than Madras. I'm really keen to improve my colloquial Tamil.

I reccomend Colloquial Tamil then:

http://www.amazon.com/Colloquial-Tamil-Complete-Course-Beginners/dp/0415187885/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383581562&sr=8-1&keywords=Colloquial+Tamil

It only teaches spoken Tamil and not written.

YeahI think so, ever since I have been living in the USA I have been foregtting Pashto.

I want to learn many languages also and I want to know how polyglots learn so many. I struggle with only one 

No Spanish is not the best. No language is.

स्वागत है बिजली! आशा हूँ की तुमको यहाँ पसंद है!

Spanish, Italian,  Afrikaans and Dutch. I don't like the sound of these languages.

enta min wain ya akhdair? Filistine, mish hyke?

Shukran ya Akhdair!