Learn Marathi in a Month

As I'm off to India in August, I thought I would be well prepared and buy a book optimistically titled, 'Learn Marathi in a Month'. It's two months until I go, so I can take my time.

The book has arrived, with the encouraging subtitle, 'Easy Method of Learning Marathi Through English Without a Teacher'. It starts to go downhill with the preface, where they admit that Marathi is easy to learn as long as you know Hindi or Sanskrit. Chapter 1 hopes you will learn how to write vowels and consonants, (which look like tangled tights hanging on washing lines), but doesn't offer any explanation as to which vowels and consonants you are practising. This comes in chapter 2, where it has perplexing explanations such as, 'the vowel (rv) should be pronounced as rv'. I'm not sure how helpful, 'Mother, the lotus flower is beautiful' will be as my mother isn't accompanying me on the trip. Also redundant, 'sister, take out the vegetable from the basket' or, 'The drawingroom has two windows'. I will obviously need to practise the useful abbreviations, especially the script for 'Home Guard' and 'Field Marshal'. You never know when you might need those. The proverbs page is fun - 'Every cock fights best on his own dunghill' and the ever popular 'swallow a camel to strain a goat'.

I'll let you know if I'm fluent by the end of June!