It’s amazing to hear that you’re learning Hindi to try and connect with your family more! I know that you have some baseline knowledge of Hindi and I’m assuming that you don’t live in an environment where a lot of people speak in Hindi. I don’t know if you know the Devanagari Script so let’s just assume you don’t.

If you want to learn conversational Hindi, you are in luck! Most people in India (in big cities, usually) know and use English words in day-to-day conversation. And then learning a new script is not as important either, you can just work with romanisation (writing hindi in the Latin alphabet, which most of us do).

Romanisation has one problem though, there are a lot of sounds in hindi that can't be differentiated between unless you ready know the word like the soft and the had 't's and 'd's. The script isn't exactly easy, though it will greatly benefit you as Hindi is read exactly as it is written. So, I would suggest you learn it via YouTube. I found a good teacher on YouTube- Shachi Chotia. I also found this resource for learners, which might help you and help with grammar.

Now, the most important part- immersion. A lot of people find it hard to distinguish between the subtle sounds and pronouncing certain consonants (like ड़ and ण). I know a lot of language learners suggest music, but I'd advise against it as most Bollywood music incorporates other Indian langauges (especially Urdu and Punjabi) and uses a lot of literary words that are not used in everyday conversation. So, I find it a little pointless. And a little confession here- I know both Hindi and Urdu but even I can't fully understand a lot of the songs lol. I'd say that movies and Netflix shows. Remember, immersion is everything! That's the best way (imo) to acquire a language. YouTube too. Slayy Point is my personal favourite.

I would kind of recommend Duolingo as well, purely to learn the script at the start though. Duolingo doesn't do much for conversation, which is your end goal.

Also- a lot of things that they make you learn in langauge class aren't as important, like the days of the week, writing numbers in hindi (just use the numbers we use in English) and numbers past twenty (honestly, you'd just be wasting you time- there's no discernable pattern to them and you'd waste your time).

I hope this helped you! Feel free to message me if you have a question/practice your Hindi :D

Man, I have a really hard time picking favourites! I have a lot of German words that I love (even though I don’t have a particularly extensive vocabulary) most of which are compound words. One of my favs at the moment is Handschuche (gloves). It’s just so cute, you know? Also names of animals like Schildkröte (turtle, literally translating to shield toad) and Stachelschwein (porcupine, literally translating to sting pig), and many more.

Although, I learnt a new word recently which is probably at the top of the list right now- Weltschmerz. It roughly translates to “world pain”. It refers to a deep feeling of melancholy, sadness about the imperfection or inadequacy of the world.