Free resources cover most of it. Apps, YouTube and free guides cost nothing and will teach you vocabulary, script and listening. The one thing they cannot do is correct your pronunciation, which is why most people add one paid session a week rather than daily lessons.
What genuinely costs nothing
Duolingo, Memrise — vocabulary and daily habit
YouTube — unlimited listening at natural speed
Free guides, including ours —
the alphabet, greetings, numbers, phrases
Language exchange apps — speak with someone learning
English in return, free
Indian films and web series on services you already pay for
Where free stops working
Pronunciation and grammar correction. An app cannot hear you, so it will let
you say त instead of ट for a year without ever mentioning it. Nor can it tell
you that a woman says karti and a man karta — it will teach the
rule and never notice when you break it.
Learners who use only free resources very commonly end up understanding a
great deal and being unable to speak. It is the most frequent place to get
stuck.
The cheapest arrangement that actually works
One tutor session a week, free resources for everything else.
At $6–$6 a lesson that is one modest weekly outlay — far less than daily lessons,
and it fixes exactly what free study cannot.
Being straight with you: you do not need a tutor for every hour of study, and
anyone selling you daily lessons from day one is selling more than you need.
Before you pay anything
Take a trial lesson. Most tutors offer one, including
ours. It costs little and tells you within
an hour whether one-to-one teaching suits how you learn.
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.