Hindi survival kit

About this kit

Hindi is spoken by over 600 million people in India. From Delhi to Mumbai, from Jaipur to Varanasi: with this kit, you have the bare minimum to get by in northern India. Indians greatly appreciate the effort of speaking their language.

Hindi (हिन्दी) is one of the most spoken languages in the world, with about 600 million native and second-language speakers, mainly across India, Nepal, and the Indian diaspora. Together with English, it is an official language of the Indian Union, although India constitutionally recognizes 22 languages and hundreds of regional ones. Hindi is written in Devanagari (देवनागरी), an abugida script in which each character represents a syllable, read from left to right. Its roots reach deep into Sanskrit, the sacred language of Hinduism, from which it inherits much of its scholarly vocabulary, while daily life borrows heavily from Persian, Arabic, and English (the famous Hinglish). Unlike French, Hindi does not have a strict tu/vous split: politeness is expressed through three pronominal levels (तू tu intimate, तुम tum familiar, आप aap respectful) and through verb endings. When you travel in India, remember that aap is your safest choice when addressing a stranger, a shopkeeper, or an elder. Hindi also shines through Bollywood, whose films and songs are the main vehicle spreading the language globally. Beyond words, communication in India relies on specific cultural codes: namaste (joined hands) rather than a handshake, exclusive use of the right hand to eat or hand objects, removing shoes before entering a home or temple, and the famous head wobble that can mean yes, agreed, or understood. Mastering a few Hindi phrases opens an immediate smile across the subcontinent.