Learning any new language requires much study, focus, and humility. We strongly encourage all Nyaya volunteers who will be working in Achham to study formally before their trip - while it is not a prerequisite to working with Nyaya, it will greatly enhance the volunteer's ability to be effective in their work and enjoy their time in Nepal.

Strategies

There are several ways to pursue Nepali studies:

1. If you are a student at Yale University, you have access to the Directed Independent Language Study (DILS) Program. Courses are offered each semester - for more information visit http://www.cls.yale.edu/page.asp?file=2/154.
2. If you are a student at another university, consider asking your university to support an intensive study.  Nyaya can help you present to them as to why they should provide subsidized Nepali lessons to you.
3. Nyaya is sometimes able to offer personal tutors to volunteers who may not be able to secure tutors using steps 1 or 2. Since tutors are limited, we prioritize volunteers who have a long-term commitment to the project and whose work in Achham will greately benefit from learning Nepali. If you are interested in a tutor, please email the Volunteer Coordinator at volunteers(at)nyayahealth.org

Nepali Language Resources

• Online Nepali teaching resources:
• http://lrc.cornell.edu/nepali/online - This site is run by Cornell and is an online Nepali curriculum with audio and text
• http://www.ms.dk/sw75174.asp -- This site, which is entirely free, is managed by the Dutch MSActionAid, and includes extensive text and audio based self-teaching courses. Nepali language textbook, flashcards, and vocabulary lists are all included, and paired with complementary audio samples. All materials can be downloaded in .pdf and .mp3 formats. A very good start for the self-teaching Nepali novice. 
• http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/projectteam/turin/publications.html#teaching -- This links to the Cornell Nepali course materials including the Nepali --> English dictionary (including both Nagari script and phonetic spellings of all words) and the course text "Nepali: A Beginner's Primer, Conversation and Grammar."
• http://lrc.cornell.edu/medialib/np -- These are the audio samples that correspond to the Cornell course text, but cannot be downloaded. CD copies are sold on this website for $64.00 USD
• http://lrc.cornell.edu/students/workbooks/nepali -- These are the online workbooks corresponding to the Cornell course text, but also cannot be downloaded--only completed online. 
• http://www.learnnepali.com -- This site includes very limited and basic discussion of pronunciations (including a discussion of "nasal vowels"), and some commonly useful phrases (greetings, market-place, medical, etc.) This is not a course to learn Nepali, but may be useful for some remedial vocabulary. 
• Teach yourself Nepali: great Nepali book http://directebookdownload.com/g/download/0340913843/Teach-Yourself-Nepali-(Teach-Yourself-Complete-Courses)/ 
• Nepali dictionaries:
• http://www.lexilogos.com/english/nepali_dictionary.htm -- This site has links to several downloadable and/or online Nepali dictionaries. Quality of each varies, but when used in tandem, may be very useful for the novice Nepali learner. 
• http://www.nepalisabdakos.com/ -- This is unfortunately very difficult to use unless you have basic knowledge of Nagari / Nepali already. 
• Nepali font files:
• Please see the following websites for Nepali font files:
• http://ncthakur.itgo.com/download.htm

  http://www.nepali.info/nepali/fonts/

  http://www.nepalhomepage.com/reference/fonts/

  http://www.educationlaw.gov.np/nepali/general/fontdownload.asp

  http://old.thdl.org/tools/fonts/nepali.html

• Books for purchase: 
• Teach Yourself Nepali Complete Course Audiopackage - http://www.amazon.com/Yourself-Nepali-Complete-Course-Audiopackage/dp/0071424695/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233446872&sr=1-1
• Lonely Planet Nepali Phrasebook: http://www.amazon.com/Nepali-Phrasebook-Mary-Jo-ORourke/dp/1740597354/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_
• Courses: 
• The Rassias Foundation (@ Dartmouth) occasionally offers a semester of college-level Nepali in an intensive ten-day course: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rassias/
• Currently (Nov 2011), this course has not been offered in over two years. It is unclear when, if at all, it will be offered again. Contact information is available on the website. 
• Nyaya is putting together a guide of commonly used acronyms and Nepali terms (that you might see in our Team emails or documents) that you can view here http://spreadsheets.google.com/a/nyayahealth.org/ccc?key=p-TJjzE7A-O7kXwoldlpjEw

Typing in Email and Online in Nepali

This is a great bookmarklet that allows you to type phonetically in Nepali within your webbrowser:

http://t13n.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/blet/docs/help_ne.html

A brief note on Hindi and other Sanskrit-based languages