Meera

@Meera - from what I have observed, as long as it is on media (radio, TV, anime), the pronunciation is exaggerated while in casual conversations, I find Japanese people to be a little bit lazy.

Just like British people not pronouncing the sound /r/ at the end of each word. Haha

Oh okay. But could it still help with prounciation? Like if you couldn't go to Japan to practice? Sorry I know it's a weird question.  :vampire:

India is a huge country, how many languages are spoken in your country? How's the literacy level from the people that don't speak English, can they read and write Hindi or their other native language?

There are hundreds of diffirent languages spoken in India. The most spoken are:

1.Hindi

2.Bengali

3.Telugu

4.Marathi

5.Tamil

6.Urdu

7.Gujarati

8.Kannada

9.Malayalam

10.Oriya

11.Punjabi

12.Assamese

You can see the complete list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers_in_India

Most of North India speaks Indo-Aryan languages, while South India speaks Dravidian languages. There are language familes too like sino-tibetian and Munda Austroasiatic languages.

I'm not postive about literacy rates, I know the literacy rate in India is low but it is changing. I would think most  middle class, working class and upper class in cities would know how to read and write in their mother tounge and in English. But I'm not entirely sure.

I also want to point out that the list above only applies to India, but some languages in a world language ranking would rank much higher, for example Punjabi has many speakers in Pakistan and migrant communities in England and elsewhere. Same for Tamil, Tamil is also spoke in some parts of Sri Lanka and is an offical language of Singapore and has a sizeable speaking community in Malayasia as well. Also since Hindi/Urdu are so simmilair they are often ranked together.

Sometimes I wonder if you are from Indian origin lol. Awesome songs by the way

शायद पहला जनम में हिंदुस्तानी थी. 

हाँ, "माय नाम इस खान" बहुत ख़राब फिल्म है. मालूम नहीं की  करण जौहर क्या सोच रहा था.  :bored:

Hmm I live in PA and German was always offered. It was actually more popular than French in my High School.

Nagada Sang Dhol baje Song (LYRICS) - Ram leela ft. Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh [Audio HD]

I am abosutly obsessed with all the songs to this movie but this one especially!

शुक्रिया जी!

सलमान खान सिर्फ मसाला फ़िल्में करता है. शाहरुख़ भी, लेकिन वह कोई फ़िल्में मसाला नहीं है ऐसे "चक दे इंडिया", "पहेली", "दिल से". मुझको मसाला फ़िल्में पसंद है लेकिन मुझे वैरायटी भी पसंद है!

Apart from the cultural heritage lost, it's a good or bad thing for India in practical terms? I thought everyone spoke Indian in your country...

Like SpiralArctitect said, there is no language called Indian or Hindu. Hindi is the most spoken language in India, but there are probably more than a thousand languages spoken in India (I may be extraggating but it seems like it) Anyway each state has it's own language. Hindi has the most states and is understood by most people in North India. It's also the langauge of India's biggest movie industry, Bollywood and probably has the most media in it. It is extreamly close to Urdu, which is spoken in Pakistan. Examples of other languages spoken in India are Bengali (spoken in West Bengal), Tamil (spoken in Tamil Nadu), Malayalam (spoken in Kerala), Telugu (spoken in Andrha Pradesh) , Marathi (spoken in  Maharashtra), and there are many many others. India is a very diverse country.

I've studied Hindi maybe 15 years ago because I was working with a publishing house that wanted to introduce a book in India. Probably I lost my time because for what I can see most people there can read English right?  :indian:

I wouldn't say so. Knowing Hindi would have build a rapport with native speakers in India and you probably would be more respected if you know the language. Plus if you were going to India, Hindi would help you out a lot. But it depends where you were going in India, for example if the publishing house was in Calcutta you should do Bengali and not Hindi, or if it was in Tamil Nadu you should learn phrases in Tamil. But if you went in a Hindi speaking part Hindi would be a huge plus in India.

Yeah I think to be good in a langauge you have to use it everyday, otherwise it will be hard to get the hang of it.

Kansai-ben is a dialect spoken in the Kansai region in Japan. NMB48 is from Osaka so they speak/sing with a Kansai-ben. However when they're in Tokyo, I notice some of them try to speak "standard" Japanese.

I don't really listen to Japanese radio much. Sometimes I'll listen to Japan-a-radio, but they play really old Jpop songs, lol.

Arigato, Miya!  :grin:

The easiest I studied was Indonesian. I thought it was even easier than French.

I don't mind subtitles but I hate dubbing.

Bonjour welcome to Linguaholic !

For me, I had use course books with audio. When I first started learning Hindi there was absolutely nothing to learn Hindi with except books and the only modern book for it I found was the Teach Yourself Hindi series by Rupert Snell. So I ended up using that when I first started and I was young and didn't really know how to teach myself a language and he uses a lot of grammar terms I didn't understand so I used to just copy sentences and read the dialogues. When I got older I ended up going through the book (and I still look it at it now!) but now I use grammars, workbooks and I try to translate songs and dialogues from films. I also read newspapers and websites online, but it's kind of sad that there isn't  a lot of websites available in Hindi   I also get Hindi statelite channels here so I try to watch them as much as possible, listen to Hindi music, watch the movies etc. My parents also got me Hindi Rosetta Stone and I'm on level 2 in it now and I don't know how good it really is but it is definitely helping. I also go to many Indian shops around here and try to speak to workers only in Hindi, which sometimes is hard because for some reason around here we have tons of Guajarati's that say they understand Hindi but can't speak very well. My goal is to hopefully be fluent in Hindi/Urdu one day, I like to learn phrases in a lot of languages but the only I want to be fluent in is Hindi/Urdu  :grin:

I decided to learn Hindi because I have always had a huge interest in India and Indian culture. Even from a very young age  I always preferred Indian movies, music, food, clothes, and I always been very interested in Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism. Even my room is decorated in Indian style!  I really don't know what it was that made me start to learn I just picked up a book on Hindi one day at the bookstore and started learning.

Konnichwa Miya! I listened to "Baby, Baby, Baby" "sugar rush" and some with names in Japanese. I like their music a lot! Thanks for the both of the videos. I really like both songs  :grin: What is kansai-ben? Also are there a lot of Japanese radios you can listen to online that plays Japanese pop?

my dictionary gave me too many words for corrections so I didn't know which one to use.  :vampire:

हाँ लेकिन मुझको शाहरुख़ खान ज़्यादा पसंद है. मेरे ख्याल से सलमान अभिनय ख़राब है.  "दबंग" बहुत अच्छा फिल्म है! हाहा चुलबुल पाण्डेय 

Thank you both! I love all kinds of music except heavy metal and country. I love KPOP. But I just checked out AKB48 and loved their music  :grin:

Maine abhi realise kya ki apne yahan 'corrections' likha hai. 

I also listen to mostly Nancy Ajram and Amr Diab. There were some good Moroccan singers as well who sang in Masri and Lubnaani dialects (both being so much easier to understand) as well as their own native dialects, but I just can't recall their names.

Samira Sai3d is from morocco and sings mostly in Egyptian. Is that who you are thinking of? Saber Rebai is from Tunisia and mostly sings in Levantine. Actually it's hard to know which ones because they useually all sing in either Egyptian or Levantine 

I've only used the free lessons so I don't know. I have heard good things about them about though.