COLORFUL

There are so many languages spoken here, it's confusing. In Goa, there are a lot of "foreign workers", i. e. workers from other parts of India, so when they hang out together, they speak their first language, whether it be Nepali, or Tamil, or what have you. The Goans speak Konkani. But for the most part, they all speak Hindi as a second language, which they had to learn in school. Then, they will also likely speak English or French or Russian as a third language.

So I figured I would learn a bit of Hindi to help me get by in case English is not readily available on my travels. I find that people appreciate when you make an effort to communicate with them, rather than always expecting them to communicate with you. It has already come in handy, as with my daily interactions with the bread wallah (no, Mike, he doesn't have donuts, he's not the donut wallah).

I had a series of thirty half hour Hindi lessons on tape which I listened to before leaving. I had planned on reviewing them a third or fourth time while here, but when I had to restore my phone to make it work here, I lost them. So I bought a book on Hindi, which has been good, since I have also wanted to refresh my mastery of devanagari (the script used for Hindi and Sanskrit) and the book has been good for that.

The book also offers some helpful phrases for the traveler, although I'm not sure exactly how helpful many of the phrases will be.

So far, I haven't found a use for:

"The value of the rice and wheat exported last week, amounted to half a million"

Or

"We beg to inform you that the cotton sales have been in progress for a week"

And I'm not sure what this means:

"Please to excuse my pronunication"

But the following group of phrases should come in handy on my travels:

"How much do you charge for a child?"

"I can get it cheaper at another shop."

"I do not like the color. Do you have a lighter shade?"

"Just a minute. He is putting his clothes on."

And finally,

"Whistling maid and crowing hen are neither fit for gods nor men."

नमस्ते