Offered:

  • Introductory Urdu 104 is offered in Terms 2 (May-Jun) and 4 (Oct-Dec) each year.

Date & Time:

  • Our Term 4 Urdu 104 course begins on Friday 21 October 2022 and continues for eight consecutive weekly sessions. Classes begin at 12:00pm (NZ time) or 6:00pm Thursday (US Eastern) with some global time zone equivalents given below. The final class of the Term is on Friday 9 December 2022.

Time Zone equivalents:

for live-streaming Zoom Sessions from New Zealand. Times at the right have been updated for the US time chnages that go into effect on Sunday 6 Nov 2022 when US Daylight Savings Time ends.

  • Honolulu, Hawai’i: begins Thu 20 Oct 2022, 1:00-2:30pm

  • US Pacific: begins Thu 20 Oct 2022, 3:00-4:30pm

  • US Central: begins Thu 20 Oct 2022, 5:00-6:30pm

  • US Eastern: begins Thu 20 Oct 2022, 6:00-7:30pm

  • London, UK: begins Thu 20 Oct 2022, 11:00pm-12:30am

  • New Delhi, India: begins Fri 21 Oct 2022, 4:30-6:00am

  • Bangkok, Thailand: begins Fri 21 Oct 2022, 6:00-7:30am

  • Singapore: begins Fri 21 Oct 2022, 7:00-8:30am

  • Sydney, Australia: begins Fri 21 Oct 2022, 10:00-11:30am

Description:

  • Our Introductory Urdu 104 course is for beginners and specifically designed for those who already know how to read and write in the Urdu Nastaʿlīq (نستعلیق) script, and have studied some basic grammar and vocabulary. It continues on build upon the foundations of Introductory Urdu 101-103. This course continues with reading, writing and conversational practice, introductory grammar and new vocabulary. Subsequent Term courses of Intermediate Urdu (i.e. Urdu 201-204) continue with reading and writing, more complex grammatical constructions, new vocabulary, and learning additional conversational skills.

  • Those who may be already familiar with the Urdu script (e.g. may know Arabic or Farsi), but who do not know introductory Urdu grammar and vocabulary, may also chose to enrol in this Urdu 104 course, provided they have sufficient introductory grammar and vocabulary. Contact us if you're interested.

Meet our Instructor:

Executive Director, Senior Lecturer Dr Todd Nachowitz, PhD

Dr Todd Nachowitz, PhD, is the Founder and Executive Director of EarthDiverse. Todd is a Hamilton-based lecturer, anthropologist, environmentalist and diversity educator. He previously taught in Religious Studies at the University of Waikato, teaching courses on Comparative Religion and Religious Fundamentalism & Extremism. Todd holds a Masters Degree in Development Anthropology from Syracuse University in upstate New York (1991) and a PhD from the University of Waikato (2015) in Political Science and Public Policy where he completed his thesis on diversity governance and the Indian diaspora in New Zealand.

Prior to settling in New Zealand in 1995, Todd lived and worked in the United States, India, Pakistan and Nepal. He spent 11 years in South Asia as the Academic Director for university study-abroad programmes in Varanasi, India (for the University of Wisconsin-Madison); Lahore, Pakistan (for the University of California-Berkeley); and Kathmandu, Nepal (for School for International Training, based in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA) focusing on language, culture and religion.

Todd speaks Hindi and Urdu, and is a specialist in comparative world religions and the history, religions, languages and cultures of South Asia. He also currently teaches our Hindi and Urdu language courses and the Religious Diversity courses at EarthDiverse.

Location:

All in-person classes are held at the EarthDiverse offices and classrooms located at 401 Anglesea Street, Hamilton Central, Hamilton (located just north of the Hamilton Central Bus Station) (entrance is located on the side of the building, see map below). Those looking for parking for our evening classes can park just in front of the building in any of the available car parks. Daytime parking can be found in our dedicated car parks, or free 2-hour on-street daytime parking can be found just in front on Anglesea Street.
Location

Distance Learning:

This course has distance-learning options for those unable to attend the live class sessions in Hamilton, New Zealand. Students have three options for attending our courses once they have registered:

  • Attend in-person classes in our Hamilton classrooms at the regularly scheduled day and time.

  • Attend our live on-line classroom sessions via Zoom at the regular scheduled day and time.

  • Watch the live-recorded class sessions at your leisure, at a time, day and place more suited to your schedule.

Distance-Learning options:

  • In addition to our in-person classes in Hamilton, our courses offer distance learning options for those unable to attend classes in-person. Live-streamed Hamilton classes are available via free Zoom software for those living outside the Waikato. Live-streaming allows you to participate fully in your own learning, ask questions of the instructor and participate fully in the same way as if you were in the physical classroom.

  • Those unable to attend the scheduled date and time of the actual class sessions, or those who need to miss a class or two due to previous engagements or unexpected illness, can watch any or all of the live-recorded video sessions on their computers, laptops, tablets or mobile devices and study at their own pace and in their own time.

  • Detailed instructions on how to access our distance learning components will be sent after completing your registration. There are no additional fees for this service. However, distance learners will need access to a desktop or laptop computer with a good quality web-camera (tablet devices and mobile phones can also access our live-streamed classes), a built-in microphone (most modern laptops have built-in microphones) or a headset with a microphone. You will also need to download and install the free Zoom software on your computer or device. Those accessing the video recordings will be able to do so with a simple web browser on any device.

Pricing options:

All prices in New Zealand dollars. Unwaged includes students, seniors and retirees.

Course curriculum

    1. Course Goals

    2. EarthDiverse Zoom Instructions PDF

    3. “Introductory Urdu” textbook by Dr Todd Nachowitz, PhD

    1. 20221021 T4.1 Urdu 104 class notes

    2. 20221021 T4.1 Urdu 104 video

    1. 20221028 T4.2 Urdu 104 class notes

    2. 20221028 T4.2 Urdu 104 video

    1. 20221104 T4.3 Urdu 104 class notes

    2. 20221104 T4.3 Urdu 104 video

    1. 20221111 T4.4 Urdu 104 class notes

    2. 20221111 T4.4 Urdu 104 video

    1. 20221118 T4.5 Urdu 104 class notes

    2. 20221118 T4.5 Urdu 104 video

About this course

  • $150.00
  • 19 lessons
  • 10.5 hours of video content

Notes:

  • Those who cannot make the class meeting day and time via live Zoom sessions may consider accessing this course through the weekly recorded video sessions. Class videos are posted to the course web page usually within 1-2 days of each live class session and are available for your own personal learning on a day and time of your choosing.

Materials:

  • The course fee includes all teaching materials.

  • An “Introductory Urdu” textbook, written by Dr Todd Nachowitz, is included in the course fees. These will be distributed as PDF files and posted to the course web page each week, which you can print at home and add to your own loose-leaf notebook. These may be supplemented by additional materials.

  • You will require a pen or pencil and a notebook for taking notes. Any notes that your instructor writes on the class whiteboard will also be posted as a digital PDF file on the course web page so that you can print these out at home and add them to your own notebook.

Prerequisites:

  • Prerequisites for this course are: completion of Urdu 101-103, or the equivalent as evaluated by the instructor.

  • There are no prerequisites if you can already read and write in Urdu (e.g. are already familiar with the Arabic or Farsi script) and have sufficient introductory grammar, vocabulary and basic conversational ability.

Students reviews:

Testimonials: