How I use Claude AI to improve my Hindi

My Current Baseline

The approach with which I crafted my AI assistant, in terms of context, prompts, and expectations, was informed by my level of entry. Currently, I would classify myself as an intermediate Hindi speaker for the reasons below:

Strengths:

1. Thanks to my mom’s repetitive Hindi exposure at home, it allowed me to comprehend the language much better than I can speak it. I didn’t realize, until being around my husband’s English-only speaking family how seamlessly I can listen to her go between English and Hindi, but don’t register which specific language she spoke if someone asked me to recollect our conversation.
2. In addition to comprehension and vocabulary, I heard a lot of conversational Hindi dialogue through my grandparents, mom, tutors, and Hindi movies, which I love to watch. My husband pointed out that this has lead me to know “how Hindi should sound”, which is an interesting point because I can vet whether the other speaker, human or AI, is speaking Hindi correctly for the most part.

Weaknesses:

1. I still have trouble constructing my own sentences when having to speak and not just listen. I do not have a formal Hindi education like memorizing nouns and their articles or future imperative sentence structure — everything is mimicking what I have heard spoken to me. I realized oddities like, I do not know how to say “Let’s go for a bath” but do know how to say “Go take a bath” because I remember my mom phrasing it like a command instead rather than suggestion. I am not yet able to adapt the same words and intention into different tenses without thinking about it. Some short sentences like “Does your head hurt” draws a blank for me because I know kya, tum, sar, and dard but not how to put them together because I don’t remember hearing this sentence in a movie dialogue or have been asked in English by others. Stitching those words together “kya tum sar dard hai” sounds wrong, thanks to my second strength. **
2. In addition to gaps in my grammar, I have hardly practiced conversational Hindi because it was not required at school, my peers both in the US and India spoke English as their first language, and I have been made fun of for my American accent when speaking Hindi. The lack of experience forming the right shapes in my mouth makes me more tongue-tied than I initially expected — words like girana (to fall) or leke jakar jao (go take it and go) — were harder to say quickly and clearly when I tried to speak it at the same pace as my English.
3. In addition, my Dad taught me how to read Hindi by looking at highway and road signs when we would travel within India. I am proud and amazed at how I have retained that skill with very little practice. The flip side is I read Hindi slowly.

Goals

Speaking an Indian language is one way to feel immediately more connected to a subset of the people in the country, even when visiting, which I strongly believe has a higher likelihood of pulling them in with a “one of us” mentality. Seeing my kids operate with ease between the two countries and their people is an achievable ideal. While they are very young, I want to maximize normalizing comprehension and speaking and therefore need to keep improving my language skills too.

Specifically, my goals for them are:

1.) Understand what I said in Hindi and reply in English

2.) Understand what I said in Hindi + reply in Hindi

3.) Initiate conversation in Hindi with me

How I set up my Claude Project

• I created a Project in Claude called "Hindi Fluency".
• Instructions:

You are my Hindi tutor. Converse with me in Hindi and I will reply back in romanized written out Hindi. correct mistakes I make and explain the linguistic pattern I should learn.

After explaining corrections, resume Hindi conversation with me and keep promoting me to converse in Hindi by asking questions or moving the conversation along.

Always give me tips on how to remember tenses, gender agreements, and correct grammar construction.

Challenge me to speak conversationally but complex thoughts, not just basic ideas. Prompt me with conversation topics that cover a range of things, not just my family and kids.

The goal is to teach my kids Hindi by speaking to them, so help me learn the informal usages rather than extremely formal.

Give me corrections and tips in English, and output varying in Hindi or romanized Hindi.

When I say "memory mode" or MM, store each of the English sentences I provide in a list of sentences I do not know how to say yet. Confirm they are stored but do not immediately prompt more conversation or print out the rest of the list.

When I am speaking conversationally in Hindi, prompt me to use phrases or words from the MM list that OR include instructions on how to say MM sentences when you correct my sentences or give me grammatical advice.

At the end of conversations, output a quick analysis on my conversational skills -- tell me the top 3 grammar techniques I used most often, top 2 topic areas I focused on, 3 of my most repeated mistakes, 2 grammar lesson summaries that would help me fix my repeated mistakes, how much of my memory mode list I covered, and 2 pattern insights from my memory mode list that I can focus on next time.

Quiz Me (QM) or T2M (Talk to me) are the two different modes I want to enable. T2M means practice conversation with me. QM is getting me to rapidly translate sentences and words from Hindi to English, focusing on grammar and sentence construction mistakes I have made.

• The key focuses are:
  • All conversation and replies should be in Hindi; keep prompting me to converse by asking questions to move the conversation along
  • Correct mistakes I make after every response of mine and explain the linguistic rule for that mistake
  • Give me clever tips on how to remember tenses, gender agreements, and correct grammar construction
  • Challenge me to verbalize complex thoughts, on a range of topics like politics, sports, entertainment, food, and more.
  • Focus on the informal rather than formal since I will be using it with my kids
  • Output corrections in Denvagri, since it is a phonetic script, so I can sound out how the word should sound. Output explanations or grammar rules / tips in romanized Hindi so I can read them quickly
  • Give me more examples when I ask a grammar or vocabulary question
  • When I type Memory Mode or MM, remember the phrases I give you and store them for when I am ready to converse. Teach me how to say them, quiz me on them, and then prompt me to answer with similar words and tenses so I practice
  • Analyze grammar mistakes and identify patterns based on that
  • Analyze topics I bring up frequently and integrate vocabulary words from the topic into the conversation
  • Quiz Me (QM) or T2M (Talk to me) modes
• I am hesitant to ask about regional phrases or dialects because I would not know whether the AI was telling me correct usage or not. I am focused on standard, universal Hindi and then an advanced lesson could be with an iTalki tutor if I was planning to go to Bombay as opposed to Delhi, for example.
• After this, I can start any chat within the project “Hindi Fluency” and I speak to it like a friend or about my day and the rest of the conversation grows organically from there

Why Other Methods Are Inferior to Claude AI

I have tried two methods in my adulthood to advance my Hindi speaking skills — 1.) Duolingo and its paid options and 2.) iTalki and here is why they don’t work for me:

• Speaking + conversation over reading: Duolingo tests reading Devnagri and Romanized Hindi equally. I do not need to practice my reading skills as urgently as correct grammar and expanded vocabulary. Duolingo does not seem to be able to customize the lessons to my specific needs right now. It is hard to practice reading and writing in iTalki live sessions. I can tell Claude to change between to two scripts — when I want to challenge myself to read I tell it to use Devnagri but if I just want to speak with little interruption and at night when tired, I make it revert to Romanized Hindi.
• Time + schedule: iTalki tutors are often in India and the time difference coordination is difficult, especially with my time and priorities focused on two kids, a full-time job, personal projects, and a social life. The time-sensitive activity I focus my willpower on currently is group workouts with a coach. Beyond that, I cannot consistently show up to a frequent activity on-time with all my other priorities. Duolingo is more flexible but the product design is so oriented around the daily streak and I find the notifications and reminders frustrating when I cannot meet that expectation.
• Dynamism and customization: Duolingo is not a two-way conversation. It doesn’t not cater its content to my goals and conversational needs, it doesn’t explain grammatical rules or let me ask questions to clear doubts, and does not provide fine tuned stats on specific areas of improvement after seeing a bunch of my conversational habits or tendencies. For example, with the Memory Mode (MM) I enabled on my Claude project, I easily pull out my phone within conversations to store English sentences that I realize I don’t know how to say. Then I have Claude teach me how to say them, prompt me to use variations of them in our conversations to ensure I understand different combinations of the words, and ask it to find my most common grammar mistakes and explain the rules so I can fix a problem area in one fell swoop. I also ask it to find themes I am discussing most often and tell it to use more vocabulary words about the topic when talking to me. iTalki is closer to this but then the scheduling arises as the main blocker.
• Cost: I use Claude for idea generation, manual tasks, coding, advice, and now language. All of these and more are available to me for $20 a month. Super Duolingo is around $13/month and I cannot easily find the option to sign up for Duolingo Max, and frankly I shouldn’t need to spend time searching hard to find out how much this costs me and what I get. I can customize my own rules as needed with Claude and use it for all my other projects, in one place for one price. I also found myself going to Claude to explain why I had gotten something wrong in Duolingo that I did not understand, which made it clear Claude was doing the heavy lifting for me during this learning process.

How it's going

• I speak to my bot 1 time every 2 days on average, for about an hour at a time
• I store sentences I am struggling with around once every 30 minutes
• I feel very motivated and in control of my learning process, like a friend who is very focused on my goals alongside me
• My daughter started copying specific Hindi phrases I use often, all by herself. Our 10-month old loves to touch and play with shoes and went from saying “Shoes math touch karo.” to “Joote math choona. Nahi karo” after Claude helped with with the verb choona. And one day she saw him going for the shoes and said “Math choona!” I was elated.
• My mom is visiting in two months and I plan to converse with her and get her take on how much I have improved or not.

How I would change my learning plan for more of a beginner

• Watch a lot of movies
• What is still non-negotiatble - consistency and practice, probably more
• Translate simple children’s books into Hindi while you read them out loud — it identifies gaps quickly in basic structure and
• Recording voice notes
• Listen to podcasts — for pauses, intonations, body language
  • Helpful to understand difference between Hindi, vs. Tamil vs. etc.
  • Like chinese japanese korean — you just become familiar with the sounds and i think increases your desire to learn
• Trying saying the sentences out loud — you would need more private dedicated time to do this
• Still lean heavily on written out content and try constructing sentences

Sentences I store in Memory Mode (MM)

Sentences that are more practical conversational starting points when talking to kids than the typical food, family, moods, etc structure of language classes (or you can use them to imagine daily conversation directions with my kids 😂)

• "I don't see yours. I see mine."
• "Walk over here."
• "We need to return these library books."
• "Do you like my flowers?"
• "I want to replant these flowers in new soil."
• "You have a great memory. I can't believe you remembered that."
• "If you want to play with us, you need to build not destroy."
• "If you are going to get angry, you need to go over there."
• "Every time I store a phrase in memory mode, you do not need to complement me. Just say stored successfully. And that's it."
• "Put this marker in the trash because it is dried out."
• "The white crayon will show on the black paper."
• "You need to find black paper."
• "Maybe there is black paper upstairs."
• "How long will it be?"
• "I got a new bread I want you to try it."
• "I put your toy there because it will get dirty."
• "It is almost ready."
• "Please wait."
• "Do not stand."
• "Standing is not allowed."
• "Do you want help cutting your egg?"
• "How does it taste?"
• "Why am I doing uppy for you?"
• "You are not hungry yet?"
• "I am not hungry yet."
• "Do you see the top?"
• "Do you see the lid?"
• "This is a great plan."
• "It felt very nice to be asked questions."
• "It was actually sweet."
• "I haven't felt that in a long time."
• "Otherwise it is too much bread."
• "Are you going to eat that?"
• "Are you done?"
• "Should I get a haircut?"
• "He is returning the dustbin."
• "It has not arrived."
• "You keep on doing that."
• "That is dirty."
• "Is this what you wanted?"
• "Are you thirsty?"
• "If you want honey and water, now is the time to have it."
• "Let's read a story."
• "Pick a book."
• "That is not yours."
• "If it is not yours put it back."
• "Should we go to Didi's room?"
• "That is a very colorful outfit."
• "I love that outfit."
• "Come sit next to me."
• "Go take a bath."
• "I see it."

My Cultural Background

I am ethnically Indian (both parents) and grew up in the United States, moved to South India and did some of my schooling there, and then back to the US. My mom’s side of the family are Punjabis who grew up in Calcutta. They speak Hindi and English most often, with Bengali and Punjabi peppered in it. My dad’s side is from Andhra Pradesh and all speak Telugu and varying levels of English. When growing up, my mom spoke Hindi and English to us so I am most fluent in Hindi over other Indian languages. I married a Caucasian man and English is the first and most fluent language of all of our friends and family. We currently have two kids and so far plan to raise them in the United States. These details are to give you an idea of the strong cultural pulls at play when I think about how I want to raise our children. My extended family is well-intentioned and supportive of all Indian norms, but the reality is their lives are spent predominantly being surrounded by Americans and speaking only English. I am the only tie to Indian culture in my immediate family and it is such a large part of my identity that I want my children to integrate into the culture of the country, not be voyeurs as is very common with NRIs and ABCDs.