Me and a language named "Hindi"

here's the ongoing saga about my travails with the "hindi" language... having come from a place where hindi is more of a foreign language than the national language and having learnt the bits n pieces of what i know of hindi from television serials n movies n the few classes i had in school as a kid, it has been quite an interesting two-and-a-half years here in college. there's been many hillarious incidents concerning my efforts in speaking and understanding hindi. one incident i remember quite clearly. i was in the first year then. i had no idea of a lot of hindi words and sentences.and to me a lot of words seemed just the same even though they differed slightly in spelling and pronunciation. so when a friend pronounced " bhaad me ja", i innocently asked if that meant "go to the floods"!!!  i simply mistook the "bhaad" (which actually translates to "hell") for "floods". now all you hindi speaking people must be wondering how i couldn't have differentiated the two words. but to me they sounded just the same. how was i to know dat they were two words poles apart!!! one person present there advised my friend to never bother using such sentences with me because it just would nt have any effect on me for i don't know their meanings. maybe ignorance is bliss. but none of my troubles with this language is greater than the one i have with the genders.i never can seem to get a hold on the proper use of words with the so-called "genders" in hindi. it's always a laugh riot when i try to speak.i end up using the wrong words most of the times.and the thing is i never quite seem to improve even though i have been here two-and-a-half years. my mind never stops to ask one question though. why does it matter if a table or a car is masculine or feminine?? genders are supposed to be for living things. that's what i have always thought. but then i come here and suddenly i find out that every thing, living or non-living, has a gender.  of course i m a slow learner (to be honest, a very slow one at that). i don't deny that. but given a piece of wood or a jar of copper, i have my genuine troubles telling if it is a male or a female!!! n to add to all this, i can't make use of the proper forms of respect in my sentences. sometimes i get scared i may offend people; that people may think i m rude. so i take the easy way out. i follow the motto : "silence is golden". but most times i speak the way i speak ; wrong genders, misplaced words, north-eastern accent all included..(as for my accent, hearing me speak would giv  a bettr idea abt it.. lol..) i wonder if my hindi has improved a bit since my first year days or if it is just the same.(some people may say it's got worse!!!)... but i hv still got a year and a half to go till i graduate. and being an eternal optimist, i strongly believe i will learn..(it's not that bad to keep the faith at least... ).. let's wait and see. maybe someday, i will speak hindi without having to stop mid-sentence n wonder what word to use and if i sound right or not. i may stumble n fall now. but time and again i will rise. i will rise to speak "my hindi" (broken or however it is...)..... :D