Hindi

I'm learning a few words of Hindi here and there, especially the ones I hear over and over. 'Bas' means enough, as in 'stop this rikshaw ride now' or 'no more chai, thanks'. 'Sidha' means go straight, useful when rikshaw drivers make spontaneous turns, which they seem to do often (I'm not sure if they're trying to get a little more meter time from hapless foreigners or just going with the flow of the traffic.) 'Achhaa' is heard constantly, meaning 'OK', 'yes', 'I see' and probably a dozen other similar things. 'Bahut achhaa' means very good as in 'very good sitar playing' or 'very good biriani'. And of course, lots of English is mixed in, like 'left' and 'right', for constant rikshaw directions (assuming that you know where you're going... I never do, and neither do the rikshaw drivers half the time. Fortunately Peter usually does.) Of course any technical or modern words are in English, too, so I'm often fooled that I'm hearing actual English when it's really Hin-glish.

Peter's Hindi is pretty good (thankfully... I'd really be lost here without him and would pay a heavy tax for being a clueless foreigner) and people are often amazed that he speaks their language, occasionally causing rikshaw drivers to turn around to talk while they're driving. And you should see the astonishment if he throws in a few words of a local dialect... a crowd gathers in seconds. And if he understands a joke that they're telling and starts laughing, there's a look of utter shock.