Intermediate Urdu 201 is offered in Term 1 (Feb-Apr) and Term 3 (Jul-Sep) each year, pending sufficient enrollment.
Our 2023 Term 1 Intermediate Urdu 201 course meets on Fridays from 12:00-1:30pm beginning on 17 February 2023 (New Zealand time). The course meets for 8 consecutive weekly sessions. The final session will be held on Friday 7 April 2023.
If you live outside of New Zealand and wish to Zoom in to our live class sessions, check the nearest local Time Zone equivalent below.
for live-streaming Zoom Sessions from New Zealand. If your Time Zone doesn't suit our live-streamed class, you can also access our courses by watching the live-recorded sessions that are posted to the course webpage each week, usually the next day.
Honolulu, Hawai’i: begins Thu 16 Feb 2023, 1:00-2:30pm
US Pacific: begins Thu 16 Feb 2023, 3:00-4:30pm
US Central: begins Thu 16 Feb 2023, 5:00-6:30pm
US Eastern: begins Thu 16 Feb 2023, 6:00-7:30pm
London, UK: begins Thu 16 Feb 2023, 11:00pm-12:30am
New Delhi, India: begins Fri 17 Feb 2023, 4:30-6:00am
Bangkok, Thailand: begins Fri 17 Feb 2023, 6:00-7:30am
Singapore: begins Fri 17 Feb 2023, 7:00-8:30am
Tokyo, Japan: begins Fri 17 Feb 2023, 8:00-9:30am
Sydney, Australia: begins Fri 17 Feb 2023, 10:00-11:30am
This course is specifically designed for Urdu students that have alredy learned the basics of the Urdu Nastaʿlīq (نستعلیق) script in our 100-level courses and have some basic understanding of Introductory Urdu grammar and limited vocabulary. It continues on build upon the foundations of Introductory Urdu 101-104. This course continues with reading, writing and conversational practice, introductory grammar and new vocabulary. Subsequent Term courses of Intermediate Urdu (i.e. Urdu 202-204) 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), and have some introductory understanding of basic Urdu grammar and vocabulary, may also chose to enrol in this Urdu 210 course, provided they have sufficient introductory grammar and vocabulary. Contact the instructor if you are interested.
8 January 2023
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.
This class is a hybrid class with both in-person sessions in our classrooms and streamed live via Zoom.
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.
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.
EarthDiverse Course Information
EarthDiverse Zoom Instructions PDF
Course Goals
“Introductory Urdu” textbook by Dr Todd Nachowitz, PhD
20230217 T1.1 Urdu 201 class notes
20230217 T1.1 Urdu 201 video
20230224 T1.2 Urdu 201 class notes
20230224 T1.2 Urdu 201 video
20230303 T1.3 Urdu 201 class notes
20230303 T1.3 Urdu 201 video
20230310 T1.4 Urdu 201 class notes
20230310 T1.4 Urdu 201 video
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.
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 for this course are: completion of Introductory Urdu 101-104, 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.
