New Delhi, Sep 29 (IANS) Bollywood films are popular in Malaysia and soon one might find Malaysians speaking Hindi as well, thanks to a website that will impart Hindi lessons online to citizens of Southeast Asian countries.
Launching the website, www.simplehindi.com, Malaysian High Commissioner to India Tan Sen Sung said it was a ‘significant milestone’ in bilateral relations. ‘It is a celebration of multilingual community,’ he said here Monday evening.
Malaysian lawyer Saraswati Shirke Deo is the brain behind the website that provides online Hindi lessons that specifically target students from Malaysia and rest of Southeast Asia.
‘My main aim is to promote Hindi in Malaysia,’ said Deo, who said Hindi films are enormously popular in her country.
‘But formal language learning of Hindi is very limited there. At the same time, attending a class physically may not be feasible for all. So I thought let’s make the classes online,’ the 33-year-old said.
Deo pointed out that it would be very easy for people from south east Asian nations to learn Hindi, as Malay, Thai and Indonesian languages already have a lot of Sanskrit words. ‘When Malay students start learning, they are surprised at how easy it to pick up Hindi words.’
She has roped in two Indian professors to help in drawing up the lesson plans. ‘There is a lot of similarity between Indian and Malaysian culture. This will certainly help in bringing the two countries together,’ said C.E Jeeni, a professor at India’s Central Institute of Hindi.
Once the website picks up pace, Deo plans to open a school to teach Hindi in Malaysia. ‘I want to build a school and get teachers from here to go and teach Malaysians,’ she said.
