Ask for water three times, get three different sentences
Ask a close friend for water in Hindi and you might say “paani de”. Ask your grandmother and it becomes “paani dijiye”. Ask a stranger behind a counter and you'd probably land in between with “paani dena”. Same request, same object, three different verbs, because Hindi builds who you're talking to into the grammar. In English, “you” is “you” for a toddler, a judge or your best friend. Hindi makes you choose every time you open your mouth.
It's a different verb form, not just a polite word
In French or German, formality mostly swaps one pronoun and leaves the rest alone. Hindi goes deeper. There are three tiers of “you”: tu for very close relationships, children and God, tum for friends and peers, and aap for elders, strangers and anyone you owe courtesy. Each one pulls its own verb ending along with it. Get it wrong and you haven't made a small slip, you've been oddly cold to your grandmother or startlingly familiar with a stranger.
A flashcard can't teach the judgement
A flashcard can tell you aap means formal “you”. It can't show you a receptionist warming up after your third night, or a market vendor deciding whether to haggle with you like a local. Knowing which register fits which relationship is a reflex you build by being in enough situations that need it.
Practise by talking
In Sayelle you speak or type to a tutor that answers in Hindi. Scenarios put you in a situation with no script, where you have to pick the right register on the spot. Lessons teach grammar through conversation, and Study turns your past chats into flashcards and listening practice.
What you'll learn
There are more than 180 lessons, starting from zero, with more on the way. The units cover:
- Devanagari: vowels and the akshara, consonants and matras
- The sounds English doesn't mark, like aspiration and retroflexion
- Greetings and first conversations
- Nouns, grammatical gender and होना, “to be”
- The three-way “you”: तू, तुम and आप
- Numbers, time and days, family and home
- Postpositions and the oblique case
- Food, shopping, daily routine, travel and directions
- Split ergativity with ने, conjuncts and nasalisation
Practise on the commute
The tutor, speech recognition and voice models download once over Wi-Fi (about 4 GB), then run on your phone. A full spoken conversation works with no signal, and your raw microphone audio never leaves the device. You'll need iOS 18 or later, or Android 8.0 or later. Read more about how the offline AI works and what phone you need.
Common questions
Do I need to know Devanagari first?
No. The first units teach the script, starting with vowels and the akshara, then consonants and matras, before the course relies on it.
Will Hindi be written in Roman letters?
Lessons teach real Devanagari, not romanisation as a replacement. While you're starting out, a transliteration line can show under the text, and you can change how often in settings.
Does it teach the different ways of saying you?
Yes. There's a unit on the three-way you, तू, तुम and आप, and the verb forms that go with each, practised in scenarios where the choice matters.
Does it work offline?
Yes. After a one-time download of about 4 GB, the tutor, speech recognition and voice all run on your phone. Signing in, purchases, syncing and new content downloads still need a connection.
Is it free?
Free to start. Conversations with your tutor are free and unlimited. Lessons and scenarios use practice energy that recharges over time, and Sayelle Plus is an optional subscription that removes that limit and unlocks more content.
Start with your first sounds
Sayelle is free to start. See the other eight languages it teaches, or download it now.
