How I Learnt Urdu Script in 1 Month (And How You Can Too!)

So how I'm gonna do that? I'm gonna use it to learn Urdu and I'll tell you why and how. I'll take you on my entire journey of me learning Urdu in this video.

When I got to India, what I realized was... If you wanna integrate into a country and you wanna be accepted, you need to learn the local language.

That is the key to integrating into any culture, any society and it's so true in India. If you can't speak Hindi in India...

You'll always be on the outside. You won't get the jokes. You'll be wondering what did that person say and...

You won't be able to speak to the common man, to the aam admi on the street either.

And, yeah, it's really disheartening. When you move to another country you have to integrate and you have to become that person in that country as well.

That's what I believe. Anyway... And I realized this again when I got to Pakistan. Because I could not read any of the signs, the menus, anything.

I couldn't read anything in Pakistan because everything is in Urdu script and that's the main difference between Hindi and Urdu.

Hindi is written in Devanagari and Urdu is written in something called Nastaʿlīq. And both of them are totally different scripts.

But, Indians and Pakistanis, both can understand each other just fine; 80 to 90% of the words in Hindi and Urdu are shared.

So Indians and Pakistanis understand each other and the main difference between Hindi and Urdu...

Hindi has more words from Sanskrit and Urdu has more words from Persian and Arabic. That's it.

But actually, in India, we're not actually speaking pure Hindi or 'shuddh' Hindi... We're speaking something called Hindustani.

And, Hindustani, it sits in the middle between pure Hindi and between pure Urdu. Hindustani is in the middle here.

It's a mixture of the two languages. That's what we are speaking in India and I'll give you one example, so...

We don't say 'Swatantrta' do we? That means freedom.

We say 'Azadi' for freedom and that is an Urdu word. So, yeah, Hindustani is a mixture of Hindi and Urdu and also...

Also now it's heavily influenced by English as well. We're using so many English words these days so Hindustani is always evolving and,

Very few of us are actually speaking Pure Hindi; I kind of am because that's how I was originally taught. I was taught Pure Hindi from the beginning.

So, a lot of you guys, like, you know, laugh at me when I say something like Swatantrta. (Oh my god it's a real tongue twister)

And a while back, actually, the Indian government's language was Urdu and documents were written in Urdu script.

But over time, I think it was the late 19th century (early 20th century) there was a division between Hindi and Urdu and...

Yeah, Urdu became known as the language that Muslims speak and write. And Hindi became known as the language that Hindus speak and write.

Because, it's more closely related to Sanskrit which Hindu scriptures are written in basically.

And I'm covering my Urdu learning journey because, I hope in a way it inspires unity or inspire you to learn Urdu or even learn Hindi.

Because, if you can already read and write and speak Hindi, then you can learn Urdu script very easily. That's all you have to do.

Voila! Now, you know Urdu and just learn a few of the Arabic-Persian words and mix them to Urdu. That's it. It's very easy for you to learn Urdu. More difficult for me.

And, if you can read Urdu, you can learn Hindi so quickly. I guarantee you can learn it from 1-2 weeks to read Hindi.

Hindi is a very easy language to read and write. It's simple. And that's part of the beauty of it and why it was so easy for me to read and write Hindi. I've done it.

Urdu, from what I've just read in the introduction booklet, it's a bit more complex than learning Hindi. So yeah I'll find out more about that today, okay?

And there's only one problem. So first thing I had to do was find a teacher, right? There are so few Urdu and Hindi teachers in Auckland, New Zealand where I am right now.

So I have to travel 2 hours out of Auckland to an Urdu teacher in Hamilton and I'm gonna be doing this once, a week.

I don't have a car. I only have a motorcycle, so... it makes it fun though, right? I'm gonna take you guys on that journey right now to an Urdu school in Hamilton.

Actually they teach more than Urdu - they teach Hindi, they teach Japanese... bunch of stuff.

I've heard there's a very very good - authentic actually - Dhaba in Hamilton. So we'll quickly check that out in this video, as well.

Alright let's do this boys and girls. Love this sound... get ready.

So I just had my first class behind me in the classroom back here. It was absolutely incredible. I've started learning the Urdu alphabet.

And, my teacher (my lecturer) - his name is Todd - he's an American and he's lived in Pakistan in Lahore for two years. He has lived in India for many years in Varanasi.

He has been taught Hindi in India and he has learned Urdu in Pakistan. He's just an incredible guy.