As world is eying on Asia rising in the next decades, India has become key destination for business and travel. There has been lots of curiosity about India among global population due to its vast culture and thus the rise in Hindi Language learners has been evident in last few decades and growing steadily.
Mr. Amitabh Kumar, Founder of LangÉcole®, a leading Hindi Language School headquartered in New Delhi with other centers in Bangalore, Mumbai, Greater NOIDA, and Dehradun tells – “We have seen steady growth in number of Hindi language learners who come to our institute to learn Hindi Language and Culture. The learner’s ranges from Expats working in India, students to travelers. We get students from countries like USA, Latin Americas, Brazil, Europe, Japan, Korea and China. They are very excited about learning Hindi Language and Culture. Some of them even learn Sanskrit to be able to understand some ancient texts like Vedas etc.”
Globalization, after 1990 has opened up lots of opportunities for foreign companies to invest in India and many more expats and new companies are coming every day to explore new business opportunities and job search in India. All expats coming to India find English-speaking colleagues at work but interactions with local people or to understand and connect with their colleagues and local people, they need Basic to Advance level of Hindi Language skills. Thus, there have been major surge in demand for foreigners wanting to learn Hindi language.
Ms. Neha Saini, Director and Senior Hindi Trainer at LangÉcole®, further adds that, “Recently Yoga has become very popular and many of our students also learn Yoga while learning Hindi at our school. Some of the students have learned cooking along with Hindi class and now explore lots of vegetarian Indian dishes.
A report titled, “Indian Languages: Defining India’s Internet,” based on a study conducted by Google in partnership with KPMG, has revealed that Hindi Internet users were likely to outnumber English user base by 2021.
Thus it becomes important for Global business owners to learn and understand Hindi language to tap the local Indian market.
The article in Hindu with title Interest in Hindi growing in China By Pallavi Aiyar (Hindu, October 31, 2006), further proves this point. While talking of Centre of Indian Studies in Peking University, the journalist says:
“With Sino-Indian trade poised to touch the $20 billion mark by the end of this year, interest in learning Hindi and other Indian languages is burgeoning in the Chinese capital.”
In the same article, Jiang Jingkui, Vice-Director of the Centre for India Studies at Peking University, recalls how only five years ago he used to have trouble filling up his classes. Today, he finds courses oversubscribed many times over.
“Until very recently we knew nothing about India in China. Only Western countries like America and Europe and of course Japan occupied all our attention and resources,” he says. “Then I don’t know what happened, but it was like people went to sleep one night and woke up having discovered India. Now everyone wants to know more, given what a large country it is and that its economy is growing swiftly.”
In another article on (braingainmag.com, 29-10-2015) “How Hindi is Catching on in U.S. Schools and Colleges” by Uttara Choudhury, says “The American government is generously funding U.S. schools and colleges to teach foreign languages deemed vital to the economy and national security. First, it was Chinese, Arabic and now, there is a great push to teach Hindi as India emerges as one of the world’s fastest growing economies.”
Not only abroad even in the Southern Indian States and in other part of India like Maharashtra, the demand for Hindi learning has been growing constantly due to economic compulsions and growth.
Mr. Amitabh Kumar, Founder LangÉcole®, further add ups that “We started our Hindi Language program in our New Delhi center first but within a year we had a centre in Bangalore and also started teaching in several other centers in India and even to some of top Expat executives at their corporate office premises.”