How to teach Hindi for beginners, step by step: speaking first, then the vowels, the consonants in their five rows, the matras, first words and first sentences, a twelve-week plan for children growing up abroad, and the mistakes English speakers make

"How to teach Hindi for beginners" is searched by three kinds of people: parents abroad whose child understands Hindi and answers in English, parents preparing a child for a move back to India where Hindi is a school subject, and teachers with a first class of beginners. The method is the same for all three, and it works because of one helpful fact about the language: Hindi is written the way it is said. This page gives the steps in order, a twelve-week plan, and the mistakes that English speakers make.

Before any letters: speak

A child reads a word easily if they already know its sound and meaning. So the first two weeks have no script at all.

• Fifty words the child can use today: family (माँ, पापा, दादी, नानी, भाई, बहन), food (पानी, दूध, रोटी, चावल), the body, colours, numbers one to ten.
• Ten sentences they will say every day: मुझे पानी चाहिए (I want water). मेरा नाम ... है (My name is ...). यह क्या है? (What is this?). मुझे भूख लगी है (I am hungry). चलो (Let's go).
• One Hindi-only time each day. Dinner, bath time or the drive to school. Ten minutes is enough if it is every day.

Step 1: the vowels (स्वर)

There are eleven vowels, taught in pairs of short and long. Schools add two more signs, अं and अः, to make thirteen.

Teach each with a word the child already says: अ for अनार (pomegranate), आ for आम (mango), इ for इमली (tamarind). Two vowels a day, said aloud, traced with a finger, then written.

Step 2: the consonants (व्यंजन), row by row

The Hindi consonants are arranged by where in the mouth the sound is made, which makes them easier to learn than an alphabet in arbitrary order. There are five rows of five, then eight more.

In each row the second and fourth letters are the first and third said with a puff of breath: क then ख, ग then घ. Hold a hand in front of the mouth; the child should feel the air on ख and not on क. Teach one row every two or three days. Three combined letters come later: क्ष, त्र, ज्ञ.

Every consonant is said with a short अ built in: क is "ka", not "k". That matters for the next step.

Step 3: the matras (मात्राएँ)

A matra is the sign a vowel becomes when it follows a consonant. This is the step where beginners either start reading or get stuck, so teach every matra on one consonant first. This table is the barakhadi (बारहखड़ी) for क.

Two things to point out. The sign for short इ is written before the consonant but said after it: कि is "ki". And the matras for उ and ऊ go underneath. Once the child can read the row for क, do the same row for म, then र, then स. After four consonants they can do the rest alone.

Step 4: first words

Without matras, two and three letters: घर (house), जल (water), फल (fruit), कमल (lotus), नमक (salt), बस (bus). The child joins the sounds: क-म-ल, कमल. Note that the built-in अ of the last letter is not said: कमल is "kamal", not "kamala".

With matras: नाम (name), पानी (water), किताब (book), दूध (milk), मेरा (my), स्कूल (school).

Then half letters (conjuncts), where two consonants join with no vowel between: स्कूल, क्या, अच्छा, प्यार. Do not teach the rules. Show ten common words and let the child see the pattern.

Step 5: first sentences

Three things are different from English, and they are best taught by example.

Start with five patterns and change one word at a time: यह ... है (This is ...). मुझे ... चाहिए (I want ...). मैं ... जाता हूँ / जाती हूँ (I go to ...). मेरा / मेरी ... (My ...). ... कहाँ है? (Where is ...?).

A twelve-week plan

Twenty minutes a day, five days a week.

Keep ten minutes of speaking in every session after week 2. Reading follows speech; it does not replace it.

The mistakes English speakers make

1. Writing Hindi in English letters. "Mera naam" hides the sounds English cannot show. Use Devanagari from the first week of reading.
2. क and ख sounding the same. English does not distinguish them, so the ear has to be trained. The hand test, every day for a week.
3. त and ट sounding the same. For त the tongue touches the teeth; for ट it curls back. English "t" is between the two and is wrong for both.
4. Adding a vowel at the end. राम is "Raam", not "Raama".
5. Ignoring gender. Every noun is masculine or feminine and the verb shows it. Learn each noun with a sentence, not alone.
6. Teaching the alphabet song and stopping. Reciting the letters is not reading. Move to words by week 9.

For a child who will join a school in India

Hindi is a compulsory language in most CBSE schools up to Class 8, and many children raised abroad find it the hardest part of the move, harder than the maths. A child joining Class 3 or above needs to read a paragraph, write short answers, and know basic grammar terms (संज्ञा, सर्वनाम, क्रिया). Start a year before the move, with the plan above, then the school's own textbook. What else changes on returning is in online tuition for NRI students.

Where to get help

A 1-on-1 online Hindi class for children from age five, with a tutor in India who teaches speaking first and the script by sound: twenty-five minutes, a short reading task, and a recording for the parent. It is offered alongside maths and science for families abroad who want the language kept, and for children preparing to join a school in India. The class is at your after-school time, and the free 30-minute first class is a real lesson. How tutoring from India works for families abroad is in online tuition from India to foreign students.

Questions parents ask

See how we teach this, 1-on-1 online →