How long does it take to learn Hindi?

Around 4–6 months of consistent study for simple conversation, and 1–2 years for comfortable everyday fluency. The Foreign Service Institute's full-time estimate is 1,100 hours to professional working proficiency.

Is Hindi hard to learn for English speakers?

Moderately. The US Foreign Service Institute rates Hindi Category III — about 1,100 hours to professional proficiency, harder than Spanish or French but easier than Arabic, Chinese or Japanese. Speaking comes faster than most people expect; the script and the gender system are the real work.

EkGuru › Hindi questions

Can I learn Hindi in 3 months?

You can reach useful conversational Hindi in three months — introducing yourself, shopping, directions, small talk — if you study most days and speak with a person weekly. You will not be fluent. Anyone promising fluency in three months is selling something.

What three months honestly gets you

Effort	After 90 days
20 min/day, no speaking	Recognise words, understand almost no speech
30 min/day + 1 lesson a week	Simple conversations, survive a trip
1 hr/day + 2–3 lessons a week	Comfortable everyday conversation, slow but real

The part people get wrong

Almost everyone spends three months on input — apps, videos, word lists — and then discovers they cannot produce a sentence out loud. Understanding and speaking are separate skills, and only one of them is built by studying alone.

If you have twelve weeks, speak from week one. Badly. It is the only way the timeline works.

A twelve-week plan that fits

Weeks 1–2 — the script, greetings, 100 words. The free guides cover this.
Weeks 3–6 — present tense, questions, numbers. Start weekly lessons. Expect to feel slow.
Weeks 7–10 — past and future, 500 words, listen to real speech daily.
Weeks 11–12 — no new grammar. Only speaking. Consolidate.

If the deadline is a trip to India

Learn numbers, prices, directions and food before anything else, and do not worry about the written script at all. It is a completely different syllabus to "learn Hindi properly", and much faster.

A tutor is worth more for a deadline than for open-ended study, because they cut everything you do not need. Ours start at $6 a lesson.

Practise this with a teacher

Reading an answer is one thing; being corrected while you say it is another. EkGuru tutors teach one to one from $6 a lesson, and most offer a trial.

See the tutors Free guides

Keep going

Free Hindi guides — alphabet, numbers, verbs, phrases Short answers to more Hindi questions Write your name in Hindi Practise with a native-speaking tutor