Admire Sanaya's ability to speak Hindi

Pinot thumbnail
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Posted: 11 years ago
#1
I am stunned and slightly envious of Sanaya Irani's ability to learn and a speak a new language so utterly fluently in just a few years! With a lot of coaching I guess.
While reading the Farewell Rangrasiya thread and saw this line below:
"And she worked hard making herself learn Hindi, a language she didn't know anything of"
I have watched two shows of the amazing actress now. She speaks Hindi so naturally. The diction, the emphasis, the pronunciation of difficult words. Everything sounds normal and natural, like she always spoke it.
I understand Hindi very well but have difficulty speaking it. And I have noticed that my nieces and nephews, (growing up in the West) who grew up around people who speak Hindi, who watch Bollywood movies and listen to Hindi music, can only manage very accented Hindi. If they try to say a few words. I can do a little better. But still we find it difficult and feel tongue-tied if we have to converse in Hindi. (Our connection to India is very tenuous after 4 generations)
Can someone please tell me what Sanaya's native tongue is? The language she spoke as a child with her parents, before going to school. Did she grow up outside India?
Does she speak other languages? Spanish? French? Some people have the knack for picking up languages.
Thanks!

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tvbuf thumbnail
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Posted: 11 years ago
#2
A lot of people growing up in big cities in India don't speak Hindi (I spent several years in New Delhi, and did not speak Hindi)

I have a friend who attended Welhams (a reknowned girls boarding school in India) and she doesn't speak her mother tongue either

Kids growing up in Convent schools (Sanaya went to boarding school in Ooty) speak mostly English.

I don't know if Sanaya speaks only English at home with her family, or Parsi also (is there such a language ?)

But she has picked up amazing Hindi, and her diction is perfect. Since IPK days I have seen that she speaks really well;

and now, having worked with Ashish for 9 or so months, I am sure she has picked up more spoken Hindi, as Ashish seems to like to speak in HIndi always (I say that from his ivs)

So yes, Sanaya is excelling in speaking Hindi - on screen, as well as off-screen 👍🏼

Sanaya - you are doing a great job - now you now Rajasthani also 😛
sarita_barun thumbnail
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Posted: 11 years ago
#3
I also self taught myself Hindi... my first language is English....
Sanaya spoke English since childhood, at home too they converse in English.
I think in Ooty during her schooling she learnt a couple telugu words, but other than that it was mainly English.
It was only after coming into the industry she self taught herself Hindi.
Ashish taught her lots of Rajasthani words and phrases... as we can see by their interviews together... he even taught me a lot of words and phrases I didn't know through his interviews...
Rangrasiya on the whole taught me a lot of Rajasthani words, the language is so beautiful...

Edited by sarita_barun - 11 years ago
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Posted: 11 years ago
#4
Sanaya is doing a great job
Pinot thumbnail
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Posted: 11 years ago
#5

Originally posted by: tvbuf

A lot of people growing up in big cities in India don't speak Hindi (I spent several years in New Delhi, and did not speak Hindi)

I have a friend who attended Welhams (a reknowned girls boarding school in India) and she doesn't speak her mother tongue either

Kids growing up in Convent schools (Sanaya went to boarding school in Ooty) speak mostly English.

I don't know if Sanaya speaks only English at home with her family, or Parsi also (is there such a language ?)

But she has picked up amazing Hindi, and her diction is perfect. Since IPK days I have seen that she speaks really well;

and now, having worked with Ashish for 9 or so months, I am sure she has picked up more spoken Hindi, as Ashish seems to like to speak in HIndi always (I say that from his ivs)

So yes, Sanaya is excelling in speaking Hindi - on screen, as well as off-screen 👍🏼

Sanaya - you are doing a great job - now you know Rajasthani also 😛

Thanks for this, it is very enlightening. I assumed everyone in India, well Northern India, knew Hindi, as everything coming of that country is always in Hindi, - movies, music, television. Even the politicians speak in Hindi. And the movie stars when being interviewed. They drop in Hindi phrases in among the English.
But obviously I was wrong!
Pinot thumbnail
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Posted: 11 years ago
#6

Originally posted by: sarita_barun

I also self taught myself Hindi... my first language is English....
Sanaya spoke English since childhood, at home too they converse in English.
I think in Ooty during her schooling she learnt a couple telugu words, but other than that it was mainly English.
It was only after coming into the industry she self taught herself Hindi.
Ashish taught her lots of Rajasthani words and phrases... as we can see by their interviews together... he even taught me a lot of words and phrases I didn't know through his interviews...
Rangrasiya on the whole taught me a lot of Rajasthani words, the language is so beautiful...

I find Sanaya speaks English with a fairly heavy Indian accent. That's why I thought she spoke some other language as her native language.
I know what you mean about picking up on Rajasthani words and phrases! I learnt a lot from Paro!
In fact, a lot of my education on being 'Indian" comes from soap operas. I must be learning all sorts of wrong things, but it is fun!
I am sure if I ever get enough courage to visit India, I will do really well!!
-Zesty- thumbnail
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Posted: 11 years ago
#7
Hey there,

Sanaya is a Parsi, so her mother tongue will be parsi gujrati which I have heard Parsi people speaking ... But I dont know if she practices that 😆

She has done her schooling in Ooty, so she has not learnt hindi as a subject which any kid born in Mumbai does ... Hindi and Marathi are two compulsory subject here in Mumbai ..

But in her Interview with IPKKND gang, she had said, she has problem in making her own sentences in Hindi ,But if dialogues/script is given she can converse ... all she need is a ready dialogue ...

Lol.. Daljeet and Barun use to make fun of her hindi ...😆 And she use to retort saying , I have never learned hindi as a subject ..

She had not learnt hindi as a language and also done her schooling in a part where hindi is not spoken .. thus she has problem in making her own sentences in hindi ... but she can very well deliver her dialogue as it's already given to her and in many offscreen segments I have seen her sitting with Ashish and reading her dialogues ... must be asking him if she is speaking right ...

All in all she believes in giving her 100% in whatever she takes ..

Edited by shona_arhilover - 11 years ago
tvbuf thumbnail
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Posted: 11 years ago
#8

Originally posted by: Pinot

I find Sanaya speaks English with a fairly heavy Indian accent. That's why I thought she spoke some other language as her native language.
I know what you mean about picking up on Rajasthani words and phrases! I learnt a lot from Paro!
In fact, a lot of my education on being 'Indian" comes from soap operas. I must be learning all sorts of wrong things, but it is fun!
I am sure if I ever get enough courage to visit India, I will do really well!!



Not so. As a matter of fact her English is the more sophisticated kinds. That is why in the off-screen segment with BI stars, Zain is poking fun at her hoity-toity English - more upper class (read richer) people, with English medium backgrounds.

In contrast, Ashish has a heavier Indian accent, and Geetanjali Misra even more so.
-Zesty- thumbnail
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Posted: 11 years ago
#9

Originally posted by: tvbuf



Not so. As a matter of fact her English is the more sophisticated kinds. That is why in the off-screen segment with BI stars, Zain is poking fun at her hoity-toity English - more upper class (read richer) people, with English medium backgrounds.

In contrast, Ashish has a heavier Indian accent, and Geetanjali Misra even more so.




@ bold ... ikr ... he was poking as if he was expecting her to give her IV in Rajasthani ...
As a matter of fact ... Ananya ji's accent is also rich ... very grammatically correct and poised ...
Edited by shona_arhilover - 11 years ago
princessunara thumbnail
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Posted: 11 years ago
#10
Well to answer ur question.

sanaya comes from a Parsi family and the only language her family spoke was English. And that was the only language Sanaya knew when she started schooling.

She studied in Ooty during her formative years and as it was in the south the languages they offered were Tamily, Telingu etc. And they didn't offer Hindi as a 2nd language.
So as she had to pick a 2nd language she picked French.

So her 1st language is English and 2nd was French.

By the time she came back to Mumbai the only things she knew to say in Hindi was her own name and to tell what her father's name was. That I suppose was something grilled in to her a a kid for security purposes in case she got lost she can tell that to someone.

So ya.. she then started College and all that time too she never spoke hindi nor did anyone she knew as family or friends. They only spoke English.

She then started modeling and whenever in a commercial she was needed to speak hindi they simply dubbed her voice so she never had to learn it.

then when she started Left Right Left - her first Hindi TV serial she literally knew no Hindi.

And the director of that set would give her the script in English (which she still gets as she can only barely read the hindi alphabet even now) - and he actually sat with her and pronounced each word out loud to her and she would repeat the words separately and then he would help her form sentences and speak it loudly. Then only she did a scene with her dialogues.

She made the people on the set speak to her only in English so she would pick the language faster.
She never as far as I know had hindi coaching or tutoring - she just listened to people and tried to speak back and learned through trial and error.

All these I have typed are quoted from Sanaya's own words over the years.. I have all the interviews both videos and printed ones where she tells all these stuff 😳


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