hindi

How does one translate such a sentence? For what it's worth I tried translating it on my own but I didn't know where to go after "Agr meiN..."

Dear Foreros, I find this to be fairly odd in that whilst there are vogue terms in place for members of the White and black community in gora/gorii and kaalaa/kaalii no such term appears to be prominent for non-whites I.e. people of colour or brown people who are the most numerous in the...

Dear Foreros, I've wondered this for quite some time and although in the past I have had one individual confirm that this usage is indeed correct, I would nonetheless like to present it to the panel present here to verify the veracity of that claim. Can wusuul be used when it comes to picking...

Dear Foreros, As you may well know the aforementioned term/phrase has very little to do with actual fire but relates to being in the middle of the spray of bullets or cross-fire I.e. the use of artillery or guns towards a certain target. I have enquired in the past about terminology concerning...

Hello everyone, I would like to know a bit about the etymology of the Hindi word तर्जनी. I'm specially interested in knowing if the Hindi word bears any relationship to the verb "to indicate", "to point" or to "signal", as it happens in several languages in Europe. Thanks for your help and...

Friends, Over the years interacting with English-speaking people from India, I notice how oftenthey punctuate their speech with the word "distinct", but used as a noun. As in: "This distinct here ..." "That was one distinct that you can use Twitter to promote unrest" Sometimes, it seems...

What is the difference between sares and gond? Do you use both interchangeably, or is one more common than the other? Is it the same if actual glue vs metaphorically? i.e. sticking with glue vs he's the glue that holds the family together Thanks

Friends, Recently, I read a sports article where a (male) cricket player, overwhelmend by joy because of some victory, says: maiN [chhoTii bachchii jaisii] ro rahaa thaa Is that sentence grammatically correct? My understanding is that the relative pronoun can be either and adjectival jaisaa...

Friends, I am trying to understand when extactly is "legal" to break the continuity of a relative clause by inserting the main word (the word the clause qualifies) inside it. It seems to be the norm, but not always. In the following examples, which I took from the internet, the main word is in...

Hello everyone, I would like to know which is the word for "blond" in Hindi. I would also like to know if a difference can be made between the word "blond" (a male with blond hair) and "blonde", meaning a female with blond hair. I'm also curious about to know if the Hindi word is also similar...

Friends, When verbs formed through [noun] + [auxiliar verb] (some grammars call them "denominative verbs") present both honaa and karnaa as auxiliars, my understanding is that the honaa compound tends to express the stative, intransitive, quasi-passive meaning, whereas the karnaa compound...

Friends, What is the exact structure surrounding sentences using the verb locution pyaar honaa? (Let's suppose, to translate "I love my work"). maiN aapne kaam kaa pyaar meN huuN? maiN aapne kaam kaa pyaar huuN? mujh_ko aapne kaam se pyaar hai? mujhe apne kaam pyaar hai? Can it also be...

I am working on a project to record portions of well-known Disney songs in their native languages. I found this Hindi version of "The Bare Necessities" on YouTube, but unfortunately can't seem to find the romanization of the lyrics anywhere for me to learn. This resource has text but not...

Friends, In Urdu orthography, for the ordinal numbers from 11 to 17 there seems to be a suppression of the inherent -a- in the sequences -rah-, -dah-, -lah-, resulting in those being written as aspirated letters: rh, dh, lh. Is the actual pronunciation different in both registers? For...

Hello all, This has been touched upon in some threads but there was no thread dedicated to this topic. There seems to be a lot of words that both mean salt and beauty... I've put a list at the end of this post. Does anyone have any ideas why this might be the case? Is this present in other...

Dear Foreros, For the above whilst I am familiar with "tum Ghalatii meN ho" to mean you are in the wrong, I can't put my finger on what would qualify as the opposite. Which of the following would make sense for the former?: 1. Woh Haq meN hai. 2. Woh sach aur Haq/sach-Haq meN hai. 3. Woh...

Friends, Can paun be used to indicate ¾ of a "unit of tens", "unit of hundreds", "unit of thousands", etc.? For example, is it valid to express 750 as "paun hazaar" or 750g as "paun kilograam"?

Friends, Is the passive voice "relatively rare" in HU (as opposed to, say, the extent to which it is used in English)? Searching the Internet, "full" passive sentence examples with [subject] + [passive verb] + [agent] are extraordinarily difficult to find. At most, I find impersonal-ish...

Friends, I have some trouble understanding the nunances provided by the different progressive verbal phrases that can be formed with jaanaa + participle. The phrases below mean all more or less the same, what is the difference between them? yah pAuliTiishan baRaa jhuuThaa hai, vah miiDiyaa...

Friends, My grammar book says that the verb rehnaa used as an auxiliar, and combined with the participle of the main verb, conveys the idea of duration, iteration, progressiveness of the action. As in: So far, so good. But then, the book goes on saying that present participles are used for...

Hello, Can singular interrogative pronouns take a plural verb? Or maybe Hindi interrogative pronouns can be both singular and plural? To wit: Who came to the party? paarTii pe kaun aayaa --> singular verb; but could this be plural as well, as you'd expect more than one person? Who all came...

Hi all - the recent thread about baiThnaa inspired a question I’ve been wondering for a while. There are several common verbs that can be used in all sorts of compounds: jaanaa, lenaa, denaa, saknaa, paanaa, chuknaa There’s also verbs I’ve only seen in a few compounds: baiThnaa, uThnaa...

Friends, What are examples of Turkic words in Hindi/Urdu? I know "urduu" itself is one. The references I get from the internet are confusing. For example: Hindi & Turkish (PDF) Case of Shared Vocabulary of Turkish and Urdu Languages (Similar Words in Turkish and Urdu Languages) because I...

(is threD meN "juuThaa/jhuuTaa/..." ma3ne/maane "kisii aur kaa khaayaa hu'aa" aur "jhuuT(h)aa" ma3ne/maane "jhuuT(h) bolne waalaa" ke baare meN baat-chiit kii ga'ii thii. meraa matlab yahaaN in shabdoN se nahiiN hai.) maiN kal-parsoN jhuuloN par khelte hu'e bachchoN ke paas se guzar rahaa thaa...

Friends, In a Hindi language podcast I listen to (LearnHindiOnTheGo), one of the speakers consistently pronounces the pronouns यह, वह not as /je/ /ʋo/, but as /jɛɦə/ /ʋɛɦə/. In other words, he not only doesn't transform the inherent a into /o/, but he also fully realizes the final /-ɦ/, to...

Friends, In an Indian series I am watching, a young girl attempts to commit suicide (by hanging), but she is saved just in time by a policeman. When the father arrives home and asks what happened, her younger brother says: - diidii susaaiD kar rahii thii I am a little puzzled by this...

Friends, What is the function of the highlighted se in the stanza below? kitnii karuuN maiN iltijaa saath kii chaaNd se dil bhar ke aaheN thak gayaa phir bhii na ro paae ham My interpretation is that "saath" is not being used idiomatically as in "ke saath", but literally: "the company of"...

Hi, Does anyone know how مَطْلَب मतलब came to mean 'meaning' in Hindi-Urdu? I know it's derived from the Arabic verb طَلَبَ 'to seek'. It is not a passive participle, because it's not of the form مَفْعُوْل. I wonder what kind of word it is. Thanks

What is the correct way to write November in Hindi? November = नवंबर or November = with half म and ब ? I have seen it written in both ways by people, so I am confused as to which is correct. The thing the problem arises due to the pronunciation of this letter अं अं - is pronounced by many...

Namasthe, I know this of course as a boy's name and the stories of Lord Rama and Sita, but what is its meaning as a girl's name? Thank you for any help.

Hi, what is the difference between the following sentences - 1) Practice karte waqt koi difficult question mile toh bhej sakta hai kya? (Practice करते वक़्त कोई difficult question मिले तो भेज सकता है क्या?) 2) Practice karte waqt koi difficult question milaa toh bhej sakta hai kya? (Practice...

Friends, If I want to say that "The man is as tall as the boy", are these expressions correct? aadmii jitnaa lambaa hai utnaa laRkaa (hai). aadmii laRke jitnaa lambaa hai. Thanks in advance.

Friends, The following stanza belongs to the song "Mehram" (Youtube [BUm_hFMlsgg]), recently released by Coke Studio. The lyrics are essentially about a couple recapitulating their breakup, and maybe more esoteric meanings. The stanza In question is this, at ⟦2:21⟧, followed by my attempted...

Friends, Grammars say that compound verbs with saknaa as an auxiliary behave as intransitive. As a consequence, sentences in the past do not adopt the [ne] format. My question is: is this true also for constructions with saknaa that contain a direct object for the main verb? For...

Dear Foreros, People carry various perspectives on this matter but in my opinion the avalanche of English terms in the vernacular has made shudh Hindi or xaalis Urdu a dying breed, to the point where in most conversations you are relegated to speaking a Creole of English unless and until you...

Dear Foreros, I will provide a few contexts concerning going to/for work and being at work and wanted some assistance puzzling out what propositions and terms to be using in each case. Firstly would kaam be the correct term to utilise in each case and feel free to proffer as many alternatives...

Dear Foreros, As has been discussed on multiple occasions the wholesale adoption of English terms in various industries has meant that indigenous terms have been supplanted rather than augmented in some scenarios. Waapsii appears to be one of them, at least in the aviation and hospitality...

Hello, ["related" not in the sense of personal connections] How do Hindi speakers commonly say the following: this word and that word are not related / have nothing to do with each other? यह शब्द और वोह शब्द सम्बंधित नहीं हैं? जुड़े हुए / बंधे हुए नहीं हैं? Is there an alternative with...

Friends, What is the general, common nuance (if any) that rakhnaa adds as a vector verb? I don't know if my question is valid. Grammars try desperately to find common nuances that vector verbs add to their main verbs. But, with rakhnaa, they fail to reach any agreement, and they start...

Friends, You will agree that if an Indic feminine word ending in -ii is made plural, the suffix that's added is "-aaN". Recently, a couple of times I've heard the suffix "-eN" which is reserved for Indic feminine words ending in a consonant. The words that I have in mind are of the type...

Dear Foreros, I was wondering whether there was a way to differentiate between a beehive I.e. an enclosed structure where bees reside out of sight with a honeycomb، the hexagonal wax structure where honey is stored? I am sure plenty of you already know this but you can buy boxes or bottles of...

Friends, What is "galkar" in the following phrase? I believe it refers to the alleged benefits of drinking beer in removing kidney calcareous stones (calculi, gallstones). jaankaaroN kaa maannaa hai ki(h) biiyar piine se pathrii galkar nikal jaatii hai My attempt: "It is admitted by the...

Dear Foreros, Is making up your mind a concept immediately transferable to Urdu/Hindi and if so am I correct in supposing that zehn banaa lenaa is the idiom used for that purpose? If so please do attempt to translate the sentence as best you can. Prior to that I will give it a go myself. I...

Dear Foreros, This isn't by any means the first time I've had a run in with Urdu genderisations. It can at times be a little difficult to grasp whether a word or term ought to be muzakkar or mu'annas. However, in this case there appears to be a blatant discrepancy in common usage and dictionary...

Friends, An article about a young man from Kerala tells us how he managed to build a humble house during the lockdown, cheaply, with recyclable materials, over a period of 6 months. The verb constantly used is banaa Daalnaa: For example: My question is: what exact nuance is Dalnaa...

Friends, What is the correct pronunciation of "doctor"? In hindi I find it written as डॉक्टर - Wiktionary And my understanding is that the ◌ॉ (chandra-o) sign usually indicates a short English /ɒ/ sound. But @littlepond jii suggested that it is /dɔːktər/ not /dɒktər/ However, in Urdu...

Friends, I am curious about what are the historical reasons to use baiThnaa = "to sit" as an auxiliar indicating disapproval by the speaker. As in, for example: fauj buuRhe logoN se laR baiThii hai What is the connection between "sitting" and "disapproval"? It has to do perhaps with...

Friends: toR aanaa, chhoR aanaa, as used in the following context, are they conveying any sense of motion (physical of figurative) towards the subject? jo baNdisheN thiiN zamaan kii toR aayaa huuN maiN tere vaaste duniyaa ko chhoR aayaa huuN Do they mean any "coming" or "arriving" to a...

Friends, What is the proper postposition to use in the sentence below? anek log is biimaarii ke baare meN apne DakTar se/kaa SalaaH leNge One takes "the doctor's advice" or "an advice coming from the doctor"? Or is se only possibe with SalaaH karnaa, i.e.: anek log is biimaarii ke baare...

Dear Foreros, We've all been living through a global pandemic and the hysteria and consternation concerning everyone and sundry's medical records is something that has in some shape or form become a matter of public interest. The pandemic has given birth to novel nomenclature. You have levels...