Australia to teach Hindi in schools

[roma]

oh gosh ....hindi with an english accent was bad enough - can you imagine hindi with an australian okker accent ? ----oooooohh YUCKS !!

 

[LETHALFORCE]

Australia is in a sweet spot a resource rich country with two Asian giants ready to buy.

 

[roma]

German is not that different from English, in my experience, but it was spoken by my family..
I have tried to learn French, Japanese, and Turkish.

valiant try - german, jap and turk shold be jolly difficult for an english-speaker ....surprised you found french difficult unless you meant the pronounciation and perhaps grammar ? but surely the vocab was easy ? .....try italian instead - much nicer too

 

[Razor]

i started to learn German last year but found it very hard to learn specially the pronunciation of German words are horrible.!

Yeah, that 'ich' sounds as though there is a mandatory release of spit accompanying it

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Yeah, that 'ich' sounds as though there is a mandatory release of spit accompanying it

No spittle here.


Auf die Tische, Eins, Zwei, Drei!

 

[Tolaha]

From an education stand point this really dont make in sense........ if you do a little checking you will see theres not much truth to the article.

No room for Hindi & other Indian languages in the National Australian Curriculum, expect Hindi will be like a after school activity, if there is interest, like other activity, chess etc.

No room for Hindi & other Indian languages in the National Australian Curriculum | SAT - South Asia Times

Thats one of the things I like about you guys, you all will believe any thing.

Firstly, what was the search parameters that you used to find that "oldish" article? At the risk of sounding like a grandpa, my advice to you is not to believe everything that Google search comes up with! I kinda feel you aren't an "average" american!

Check the latest (latest as in now, 2012) on this subject:

Asian language plan linked to school funding overhaul - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

As part of the Government's Asian Century white paper, all students will have the opportunity to undertake continuous study in one of four "priority" languages - Mandarin, Hindi, Indonesian or Japanese.

Just to save you some more googling trouble, when they say "Hindi" above, they mean "Indian"!

 

[Tshering22]

New Zealand are already teaching Sanskrit in Schools and Australia going Hindi .. interesting

They teach Sanskrit in NZ!? Wow! I never knew this.

 

[Tshering22]

Yup, I've learnt Russian somewhat, and it's also not too much different than English, though had to give it up because of other priorities in life. Hope to pick it up again after I complete my undergraduate.

Russian is actually mildly similar to Sanskrit and shares quite some words considering the distances that has existed between us and Russia for so many centuries. I am conversant in Russian somewhat reasonably and I highly recommend learning it. My dad is a native in Russian language in proficiency terms since he is a Soviet-graduated returnee though.

Knowing Russian saved my neck in the barren vast rural areas of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan during one of my expeditions last year. Spent two nights with a local village family drinking fermented mare milk drink (Kumis, its amazing) and lots of vodka.

It is the English (fashion language) of Central Asia.

 

[The Messiah]

Russian is actually mildly similar to Sanskrit and shares quite some words considering the distances that has existed between us and Russia for so many centuries. I am conversant in Russian somewhat reasonably and I highly recommend learning it. My dad is a native in Russian language in proficiency terms since he is a Soviet-graduated returnee though.

Knowing Russian saved my neck in the barren vast rural areas of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan during one of my expeditions last year. Spent two nights with a local village family drinking fermented mare milk drink (Kumis, its amazing) and lots of vodka.

It is the English (fashion language) of Central Asia.

Russia like sanskrit is an indo-aryan language so it is bound to have some similarities.

 

[Daredevil]

Actually Latin is much closer to Sanskrit than Slavic languages.

 

[Virendra]

They teach Sanskrit in NZ!? Wow! I never knew this. .

Yes and it has started even in some schools of London. Check these out :
New Zealand school teaches Sanskrit and claims it helps children understand English - Times Of India
..."It has a wonderful system of sound and grammar, which gives the child an excellent base for the study of any language. Children love its order and beauty."....
....
...."Sanskrit with its almost perfect grammatical system...provides children with a roadmap for understanding English." Sanskrit not only gives young learners a clear understanding of the structure of language, it also heightens their awareness of the process of speech, creating a greater understanding of and ability to, enunciate words clearly, Crompton adds....

Sanskrit thriving in UK schools | NDTV.com
....Over the years, to their surprise, they have found an increasing number of children keen on learning the ancient language, even though the script and pronunciation is difficult for English speakers.....
....
....I feel that it benefits you in lots of different ways. As you saw, it helps in improving pronunciation and diction.....

A British school makes Sanskrit compulsory
.....The Devnagri script and spoken Sanskrit are two of the best ways for a child to overcome stiffness of fingers and the tongue. Today's European languages do not use many parts of the tongue and mouth while speaking or many finger movements while writing, whereas Sanskrit helps immensely to develop cerebral dexterity through its phonetics".....

Actually Latin is much closer to Sanskrit than Slavic languages.

Thats is true. Latin is the closest.

 

[Tshering22]

"Sanskrit with its almost perfect grammatical system...provides children with a roadmap for understanding English.

I don't know about the English part but Sanskrit is a perfect language and there's no doubt about it.

A shame that it is not made the common national language of India so that all states can use it to communicate without any hesitation.

 

[winton]

i started to learn German last year but found it very hard to learn specially the pronunciation of German words are horrible.!

Its different coming from hindi to german than it is coming from english to german.

Anyway, the white paper specifically mentioned hindi, but it doesn't state that one can get by in india with english alone becoz that is the case.

However, with budget cuts, its unlikely my schools here will ever teach hindi because its the least popular language in Oz. In fact I don't think we even offer it. However, we will definitely need to learn it as India will rise but not now. Probably in the next 50 years when india becomes from relevant..

 

[Blackwater]

They should teach Punjabi according to logic.

There are more sardars than kangaroo in australia