MDES W1610

In class midterm w oral exam, final w oral exam, 6 quizzes, daily homework

Daily Homework that is due when you want it to be due. It all has to be in by the end of the semester but she is leniant as to the dates in between. Quizzes: 4 quizzes that are easy if you know the language, but hard if the only expose you really have is in Professor Sangar's class

Homework every night. Totally possible to do in 10-20 mins but you are definitely better off spending 30-40, it will help you in the long run and you'll get a better grade.

1-2 grammar exercises per day are the staple of the homework. Occasionally there will be response sheets with a few questions related to a story read in class or grammar worksheets. There is one midterm covering basic vocabulary and grammar which she will prepare you for and list before the exam and a final comprising three parts: reading out loud plus an oral conversation, a dictation (she will read something out loud and you will write it down - focus here is on spelling, but Hindi is phonetic so it's intuitive), and a conventional paper exam. The pacing and workload of this class are reasonable and simply paying attention in class can get you most of the way to a firm understanding of the language.

Very moderate. Daily writing practice, occasional oral presentations. Might be a good idea to learn the script before starting the class since he starts using it immediately.

Amazing professor who is invested in his students, taking Hindi with him will be the best decision you make with languages.

I have never met anyone talk more about being a good teacher without ever really teaching anything. However, Professor Sangar is an extremely nice lady. She does seem to genuinely care about her students which is nice. She even brought in food for us a few times. This doesn't get you very far when you're trying to learn Hindi though. We only really went through the workbook about 2/5 hours per week with the rest of the time filled with useless conversation about how accomplished she is, how much people love her, and general life lessons for us to follow. During class it seems funny, but when you're trying to do the homework and studying for the quizzes you'll remember that you were actually supposed to learn Hindi. The 2 hours that are spent going throught he workbook aren't really even too helpful. You read a conversation once and then you wait for the rest of the class to read the same conversation. If you already know Hindi and are just taking the class to learn to write, the class is fine but a bore, but if you want to learn to speak the language: STAY AWAY. Very little is learned about Hindi, but a lot is learned about the greatness and the widespread love the world has for Professor Sangar. I was unaware of this, but apparently she is an Indian icon, or so her stories go. The only reason I learned anything in that class were the weekly TA sessions with Andrea. She was wo…

This is a fantastic class, or it was with Tyler at least. You learn the language at a great pace and should be able to read and write perfectly by the end of the semester. You learn something new almost every period. Tyler was one of my favourite Professors, he is young, energetic, clearly passionate about the language, good-humoured and very intelligent. He will take time out to talk about big issues, what's going on on campus (ie at Ahmadinejad time) because he is passionate about what is happening.

Excellent professor! She is very sweet and genuinely interested in each student's welfare; the small number of students in the class allows her to really get to know you personally and your strengths and weaknesses as a student, which she accommodates in class. She has a background in French so her familiarity with linguistic intricacies and grammar makes her explanations, typically, clear. When they aren't, feel free to ask her to re-explain - she'll try until you understand. The class is structured around concise introductions of that day's grammar and vocabulary followed by a significant number of practice exercises which typically mean, if you focus in class, you will learn most of the material pretty thoroughly without having to put in a lot of outside work. When you aren't doing grammar exercises, you will most likely be having a very tangential conversation about some element of Indian culture or piece of history or watching YouTube clips of famous Bollywood songs.

I took Elementary Hindi-Urdu with Dalpat this semester and moved my schedule around so I could take one of his sections of Elementary II next semester. He is absolutely wonderful. His class is relatively fast-paced, which I enjoyed -- I felt like he covered a lot in the first semester, and I already feel so much more confident about my Hindi than I did at the beginning. He tries to get us speaking as much as possible, which is great. When it comes to his explanations of grammatical concepts, it's clear that he's not a native English speaker, but he still does a decent job explaining and he really encourages us to ask questions if we don't understand something. He is very approachable. Plus, he is possibly the cutest person alive.