Welcome to Desipora
Desipora helps you develop your skills in your heritage language. If you can speak a bit but cannot read, start with our self-paced reading course. Currently we offer Punjabi, in both Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi, and are working on Urdu and Hindi.
If you can already read, we have a unique vocabulary builder. It is based on word frequency from our own linguistic databases, called corpuses, generated from public domain materials. Desipora’s corpuses are organised into distinct categories, so a learner can select whether they intend to get better at reading the news, using the language socially, reading books, or just general language progression.
To get the most out of these resources, you should set aside about 15 to 20 minutes a day. At this rate, you will probably complete the reading course in about 3 weeks and be able to retain and reinforce your reading, or add about 3,000 words to your vocabulary in a year.
To find out more about why Desipora started, click here for our About Page
Is Desipora for You?
The target for these courses are heritage speakers. As a result, grammar is never addressed and there are not really any pronunciation exercises. This is all based on the assumption the learner is extending their knowledge, and to do that efficiently, it avoids teaching things already known.
If you are not a heritage speaker and starting to learn the language, it will still be of some benefit. Just be aware, if you can find a course in person near you or work through a textbook it will be of far greater benefit and lay a better foundation for your language learning. If you want to learn the writing first, then add a bit of vocabulary before undertaking further study, this will help speed up the next part of your learning. But that is really the only value in a course like this for an absolute beginner.
Signing Up
You do not need to sign up to try it out. No credit card, no email, just start learning your first three lessons by clicking the link below. After you finish the first quarter of the course, decide if you like it and want to purchase the course.
To unlock the full course, a one off payment applies of $20 AUD. There are discounts for your next purchases if you want to learn another script after you finish your first course. Of course, you are welcome to trial the first quarter for free for all the alphabets.