Hindi Course Outline

The Cactus Course Outlines provide a learning framework for the Cactus Foreign Language Evening Courses. They are designed to provide you with a good idea of what you might cover over a 10-week period, and include typical themes, grammar and vocabulary fields. They are flexible rather than prescriptive, in that our teachers may decide to adapt their learning plans to the specific level, aims and interests of their classes. Use the tabs below to view the relevant Hindi course outline for your level. If you want to cover the same course outline in a shorter period of time, we also offer One-Week Online Courses and 5-week Courses.

Beginner 1

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Greetings
  • Yes-No questions
  • Who and how people are
  • What (identity), Nationality, Jobs
  • Shopping, how much…, what kind …
  • Have, want, like
  • Availability (milnā)
  • Directions, Where can I get… , Position and Place
  • Talking about accommodation
  • Exchanging personal details, introductions
  • Formal/informal speaking
  • Giving orders and making requests
  • Possession and the family
  • Numbers
Grammar
  • Making sentences
  • Verb to be, possessives
  • Yes/no questions,
  • Pronouns āp and maĩ
  • Question words-kitnā, kaisā
  • Introduction to gender and number: nouns and adjectives
  • Plurals
  • Postpositions, Case; to have
  • Verbs: routine events, present and imperatives
  • Ko constructions
  • Kā/kī/ke Possesives
  • Koī/kuch
Cultural Content
  • Polite vs everyday language – showing respect
  • Body language (agreeing, disagreeing, showing doubt)
  • English vis-à-vis Hindi
  • Showing position in society
  • Seasonal festivals/Gods’ days
Skills Work
  • Conversation development and dialogues
  • Reading and writing: the Devanagari alphabet

Beginner 2

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Revision of Beginners 1
  • Adverbs of time and place
  • Talking about the past and the future
  • Comparing things and people
  • Discussing possibilities and conditions
Grammar
  • Pronouns, Possessives, Ka/ke/ki possessives
  • Reflexive pronoun apnā
  • Gender, Number,
  • Intranstive and transitive verbs, Absolutive
  • Present Tense and Present continuous, Perfective and Imperfective Past, Future
  • Imperatives, Subjunctive, Subjunctive/Future Imperatives, You can go, Let me go
  • Ko construction, Koi/kuch
  • Emphatic constructions
  • Comparatives
Cultural Content
  • Family life – living with people
  • Daily life and religion
  • Shopping in India
  • Seasonal festivals/Gods’ days
Skills Work
  • Basic conversations and role plays

Beginner 3

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Recommendations and advice
  • Talking to the Doctor
  • Parts of the body and medical vocabulary
  • Finding the way
  • Talking about necessity and obligation
  • Time
Grammar
  • Revision of Beginners 2 Grammar and Structures
  • Lagnā verb
  • Obligations and compulsions
  • Passives
  • Relative/co-relative sentences
  • Causatives
  • Compound verbs
  • Saknā, cuknā, pānā
Cultural Content
  • Health and illness – Hindu perceptions
  • Style in Hindi
  • Towns and cities in India – Geography
  • Seasonal festivals/Gods’ days
Skills Work
  • Dialogues, accounts and directions
  • Holding conversations

Elementary 1

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Revision of Beginners 3 Hindi
  • Talking about family, hobbies, spare time and work
  • Possession
  • Describing things and places
  • Describing positions
  • Numbers
  • Talking about work and study
Grammar
  • Revision of Beginners 3 Grammar and Structures
  • Verb tenses and mood
  • The infinitive
Cultural Content
  • Leisure and work
  • Education in India
  • Castes
  • Seasonal festivals/Gods’ days
Skills Work
  • Dialogues
  • Holding conversations

Elementary 2

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Revision of Elementary 1
  • Talking about the past and the future
  • Using the Phone
  • Days and dates, Times
  • Making arrangements
  • Dining in and out
Grammar
  • The Conditional
  • Have
  • The future, uses of the future
  • Transitive and intransitive
  • Aspects
Cultural content
  • Going out and visiting people
  • Solar vs Lunar calendar
  • Religion in India
  • Invitations
  • Seasonal festivals/Gods’ days
Skills Work
  • Dialogues
  • Holding conversations

Elementary 3

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Revision of Elementary 2
  • Talking about the past and the future
  • Dining in and out
  • Small talk
  • Extended conversations
  • Give permission
  • Discussing possibilities, “If only….”
  • Discussing alternatives, although
  • Apologising
Grammar
  • The Infinitive
  • Transitivity, the passive and the causative
  • Continuation and the habitual
  • Compound verbs
Cultural Content
  • Marriage and love
  • Art
  • Food in India
  • Asking and giving permission, refusing and apologising
  • India in history – the Raj, the Moghuls, etc.
  • Seasonal festivals/Gods’ days
Skills Work
  • Dialogues
  • Holding conversations

Intermediate 1

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Telephoning
  • Giving advice and making suggestions
  • Talking about wants and desires
  • Commands and ordering
  • Describing and giving advice
  • Telling the time
  • Making preparations
Grammar
  • The Subjunctive
  • The Imperative
  • Verb Aspect – perfective and imperfective
  • Voice – transitive and intransitive
  • Verb chaining and conjunctions
Cultural Content
  • Ambition and dreams
  • Bollywood
  • Travelling in India
  • Regional Art in India
  • Seasonal festivals/Gods’ days
Skills Work
  • Dialogues
  • Conversations
  • Role plays
  • Telephoning

Intermediate 2

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Giving advice, reasons and conditions
  • Relating information
  • Talking about people, facts and events
  • Processes
  • Comparing similarities and differences
  • Describing actions and processes in the past, present and future
  • Making plans, talking about ambitions
Grammar
  • Relative clauses
  • Obligation and Necessity
  • Active and Passive
  • Beginning and Permitting
  • Habitual
  • Reflexives
  • Adverbs
Cultural Content
  • Education and careers
  • Castes and Heriditary Careers
  • The languages of India
  • News reporting in India
  • Seasonal festivals/Gods’ days
Skills Work
  • Dialogues
  • Conversations
  • Role plays
  • Telephoning

Intermediate 3

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Talking about prospects and ambitions
  • Weighing up options and giving arguments
  • Making plans and negotiating
  • Suggesting offering and refusing
  • Varying the message by nuance
  • Talking about feelings, hopes and desires
  • Plans for the future
Grammar
  • Conjunct and compound verbs
  • Reduplication – emphasis and distributives
  • Echoing
  • Conditional and concessional constructions
  • Participles
  • Transitive, Intransitive and Causative
  • The Future
Cultural Content
  • Education and careers
  • The Hindi diaspora
  • Doing business in India
  • egotiating
  • Seasonal festivals/Gods’ days
Skills Work
  • Dialogues
  • Formal and informal styles
  • Role plays

Upper Intermediate Lower

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Family, friends and relatives
  • Passions & interests
  • Idioms & informal expressions
  • Hindi literature & poetry
  • Making recommendations and presenting opinions
  • Agreeing & disagreeing, cultural etiquette
  • Bollywood; Hindi cinema and film
Grammar
  • Nouns (Direct Case and Oblique Case)
  • Prefixes and suffixes
  • Adjectives (Direct Case and Oblique Case)
  • Pronouns (Direct Case and Oblique Case)
  • Three Degrees of Adjectives (Positive, Comparative, Superlative)
  • Verb tenses including nuances of present, past, and future tenses
  • Conjunct verbs
  • Compound Postpositions
  • Adverbial Phrases
  • Reported speech
Cultural Content
  • Indian cuisine: regional variations and differences
  • Indian music and dance:, such as Bharatanatyam, Kathak, and Bhangra.
  • India and Indian Cities
  • Bollywood, the influence of cinema and film on Indian culture
Skills Work
  • Interpersonal skills: Practice of interpersonal skills, including building rapport, active listening, and resolving conflict.
  • Reading And Listening and comprehension skills: including identifying main ideas, understanding nuances, and making inferences.
  • Speaking: turn taking, interrupting, clarifying
  • Writing skills: writing reports, essays, and letters, and understanding different writing styles.

Upper Intermediate Higher

Topics & Vocabulary
  • Previous Holidays
  • Past Events
  • Past Habits
  • Childhood
  • Understanding past regular habits and past one-off action
  • Stories: fiction & biography
  • Persuasive Language
  • Current Affairs and Politics
Grammar
  • Simple Past
  • Intransitive verbs in Past Tense, Regular and Irregular
  • prepositions and conjunctions, including their usage in complex sentence structures.
  • Transitive verbs in Past Tense, Regular and Irregular
  • Perfective Tenses (Regular, Irregular)
  • Review of complex sentence structures,
  • Relative Clause
  • Reflexive pronouns
  • Conjunct verbs
  • Inverted Postposition
Cultural Content
  • Key moments in Indian history
  • Indian life style (comparisons)
  • Indian religions and philosophy: including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, and major philosophical ideas and concepts.
  • Indian sports and games: including cricket, hockey, kabaddi, and chess, and their significance in Indian culture.
Skills Work
  • Interpersonal skills: Practice of interpersonal skills, including building rapport, active listening, and resolving conflict.
  • Reading And Listening and comprehension skills: including identifying main ideas, understanding nuances, and making inferences.
  • Speaking: turn taking, interrupting, clarifying
  • Writing skills: writing reports, essays, and letters, and understanding different writing styles.

Understanding Language Levels

If you are taking a language course with Cactus you can find out more about our language levels and how you can track your progress using the ‘can do statements’ below. These statements outline the key things that you should be able to say and understand once you have completed each level. Can do statements are officially recognised as a set of performance-related scales describing what a learner is able to do in a foreign language, in accordance with the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) and the CEFR defined levels.

CEFR Levels

If you are taking a language course with Cactus you can find out more about our language levels and how you can track your progress using the ‘can do statements’. These statements outline the key things that you should be able to say and understand once you have completed each level. Can do statements are officially recognised as a set of performance-related scales describing what a learner is able to do in a foreign language, in accordance with the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) and the CEFR defined levels.

Beginner (A1)

  • You can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type
  • You can introduce yourself and others
  • You can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where you live, what you do, people you know and things you have
  • You can ask and give directions
  • You can order food and drink
  • You can make very basic travel and accommodation arrangements
  • You can have a basic conversation, provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.

Elementary (A2)

  • You can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas including basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography and employment
  • You can communicate in simple and routine tasks, requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters
  • You can describe, in simple terms, aspects of your background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need
  • You can comfortably ‘get by’ when visiting the country, albeit with some difficulty.

Intermediate (B1)

  • You can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.
  • You can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken
  • You can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest
  • You can describe experiences and events
  • You can talk about dreams, hopes and ambitions
  • You can briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans
  • You could consider working in the country using the language (e.g. bar/counter work, waiting service in cafes or basic office work).

Upper Intermediate (B2)

  • You can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in your field of specialisation.
  • You can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible, without strain for either party.
  • You can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue, giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.
  • You can do business with speakers of the language in most run-of-the-mill situations.

Advanced (C1)

  • You can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning
  • You can express yourself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions
  • You can use the language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes
  • You can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, logical flow of text, and clear awareness of the audience.

Proficient (C2)

  • You can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read
  • You can summarise information from different spoken and written sources
  • You can reconstruct arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation
  • You can express yourself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely
  • You can differentiate finer shades of meaning, even in the most complex situations.

How to book with Cactus

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