EkGuru › Learn Hindi › By country › United States
Everything below is specific to learning Hindi from United States: what your first language gives you for free, what it does not, when lessons would actually be, and what an hour costs in USD. Lessons are online, so the tutor being in India is not a limitation — but the timezone and the currency are real, and they are worked out here.
American learners split cleanly into two groups, and they need opposite things. The first is second-generation: you grew up hearing Hindi from parents or grandparents, you understand far more than you can say, and every attempt to speak gets answered in English. You are not a beginner — starting you at the alphabet wastes months. What you need is forced output, correction, and permission to sound clumsy. The second group is starting from zero for a partner, a posting, or a trip, and genuinely does need the alphabet and the sound system. Getting told which of the two you are, honestly, in the first lesson is worth more than any curriculum.
American English has no dental t or d — the tongue sits on the ridge behind the teeth, not against them. Hindi ट/त and ड/द are two different letters and swapping them changes the word. This is the one sound issue worth drilling early.
| English | Hindi | Sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| I understand, but I can't speak well yet | मैं समझता हूँ, लेकिन अभी अच्छे से बोल नहीं पाता | main samajhta hoon, lekin abhi achche se bol nahin paata |
The single most useful sentence for a heritage learner in the US. It stops the conversation switching to English, and it is true.
Our tutors teach on Indian Standard Time, which is UTC+5:30. Converted to United States, at UTC-5, the teaching window runs from about 22:30 (previous day) to 11:30.
Two honest caveats. That figure uses standard time and ignores daylight saving, which moves it by an hour for part of the year in many countries; and some countries span several zones. Do not plan around the numbers on this page — the booking page reads your device's own timezone and shows each slot in it, and that is the number that will be right.
Lessons start at $6 for 50 min. Every price on the site converts to your own currency automatically, at live rates rather than a number typed in last year. There is no subscription and no account.
| English | Hindi | Sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| Hello / greetings | नमस्ते | namaste |
| Thank you | धन्यवाद | dhanyavaad |
| My name is … | मेरा नाम … है | mera naam … hai |
| I don't understand | मुझे समझ नहीं आया | mujhe samajh nahin aaya |
| How much is this? | यह कितने का है? | yeh kitne ka hai |
These five are universal rather than specific to United States — they are simply the ones every beginner needs first. The phrasebook tool has the rest, searchable and grouped by situation.
Devanagari is easy to get slightly wrong when it is typed by hand — a missing matra, the wrong nukta. If something here looks off to you, trust a native speaker over this page and please tell us so it gets fixed — it takes a moment and a real person reads it. Romanised spellings are a guide to the sound, not a standard: there is no single official way to write Hindi in Latin letters.
Yes. Lessons are online and one to one over video, so where you are does not limit which tutor you can work with. What it does affect is the hours that suit you both — converted to local time here, tutors teach from about 22:30 (previous day) to 11:30.
Our tutors teach on Indian time. In United States that works out at roughly 22:30 (previous day) to 11:30, allowing for the usual daylight-saving shift. The booking page converts every slot using your own device's timezone, so you never have to do this arithmetic yourself.
Lessons start at $6 for 50 min. Prices are shown in your own currency automatically and converted at live rates.
No. Plenty of learners start with spoken Hindi and add reading later, or never. If you do want the script, our free alphabet guide covers every letter and there is an interactive explorer that shows each one with a real word.
Reading gets you the grammar. Speaking is the part that only happens with another human. EkGuru tutors are native Hindi speakers in India who teach one to one over video — no group classes, no subscription.
Find a Hindi Guru Free Hindi guidesWhere you are decides the hours and the price. What you already speak decides which parts of Hindi are easy and which are slow — and those are different questions with different answers.
Questions people ask before they start are answered in the questions section, and short factual answers live under answers. If you want a tutor now, the tutor list shows everyone available.