Hindi, Urdu: jaisaa aadmii aaj huuN

[MonsieurGonzalito]

Friends,

In an interview (in Hindi) given by the actor Pankaj Tripathi, he says that he aspires to improve as a person, rather than as an actor.
The way he expresses that idea is as follows:

merii laRaaii achchhaa ekTar banne se zyaada(h) achchhaa insaan banne kii hai
maiN jaisaa aadmii aaj huuN, us_se achchhaa kal ban jaauN

The bolded part, I assume, means: "that I become a better man tomorrow than what I am today"
Or, more less idiomatically and more literally: "that such a man I am today, tomorrow shall I became better (than)".

My question is: Is that the most straighforward way that a native speaker would use, to express the idea in bold type?
Or the actor speaks that way deliberately, in order to first focus on who he is today, then shifting to tomorrow?

Thanks in advance for any suggestion

 

[littlepond]

merii laRaaii achchhaa ekTar banne se zyaada(h) achchhaa insaan banne kii hai
maiN jaisaa aadmii aaj huuN, us_se achchhaa kal ban jaauN

The bolded part, I assume, means: "that I become a better man tomorrow than what I am today"
Or, more less idiomatically and more literally: "that such a man I am today, tomorrow shall I became better (than)".

Yes, that's the meaning.

My question is: Is that the most straighforward way that a native speaker would use, to express the idea in bold type?

It's a very natural, straightforward way to express this wish.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

Could I have not used a correlative expression, and placed de comparative "se" more freely, like:

ki main vo admii se aaj huuN, behtar kal jaauN ?
or
ki main vo admii aaj huuN se, behtar kal jaauN ?

 

[littlepond]

Could I have not used a correlative expression, and placed de comparative "se" more freely, like:

ki main vo admii se aaj huuN, behtar kal jaauN ?
or
ki main vo admii aaj huuN se, behtar kal jaauN ?

The above two sentences are completely meaningless (and not just because of "se": nothing about them makes any sense)!

 

[aevynn]

Could I have not used a correlative expression, and placed de comparative "se" more freely, like:

ki main vo admii se aaj huuN, behtar kal jaauN ?
or
ki main vo admii aaj huuN se, behtar kal jaauN ?

I agree with @littlepond jii, these sentences are basically unintelligible "word soups." This is actually quite surprising to me: I can't remember ever having seen you propose sentences like these...! I'm having trouble pinpointing what confusion(s) might be underlying this, but maybe I can say this:

If your intention was just to avoid a correlative and use a relative clause of another type, I guess you could have restructured the sentence to use an extraposed relative maiN kal us aadmii se achchhaa ban jaa'uuN jo maiN aaj huuN or a non-extraposed relative maiN kal us aadmii se, jo maiN aaj huuN, achchhaa ban jaa'uuN. These are maybe grammatical, but they sound much less natural than the original sentence in the OP. Correlatives are a very natural part of HU syntax and I don't know that it makes sense to try to avoid them.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

I'm having trouble pinpointing what confusion(s) might be underlying this, but maybe I can say this:

Let me try again ...

1. maiN us admii se achhaa ho jaauN
2. maiN us admii se, kal achhaa ho jaauN => adding time on the main clause
3. maiN us admii [jo aaj huuN] se, kal achhaa ho jaauN => adding a relative clause, also with time indication

 

[littlepond]

Let me try again ...

1. maiN us admii se achhaa ho jaauN
2. maiN us admii se, kal achhaa ho jaauN => adding time on the main clause
3. maiN us admii [jo aaj huuN] se, kal achhaa ho jaauN => adding a relative clause, also with time indication

While sentence 3. does not make any sense, note that sentences 1. and 2. are not meaning what you had in OP. Rather, 1. and 2. are saying that a person is wishing that he becomes better than some other man (rather than him/herself).

In addition, the sentences seem to have left something unsaid. A complete sentence would be something like "maiN us aadmii se achchha ban jaauuN": note that one would use "ban jaauuN" rather than "ho jaauN." Sentence 2. should not have any comma anywhere.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

Thank you. I am still trying to pinpoint what is so wrong as to "not making any sense" in attempt #3
Is it that one cannot apply a "se" comparison to something already modified by a relative clause?

maiN us admii [jo maiN aaj huuN] se ...
maiN us admii se [jo maiN aaj huuN] ...

my aim was for the se to apply to the whole construction, that is, to the admii plus the jo clause.

 

[littlepond]

The issue is more about the clause positions rather than "se." A proper sentence would be something like "jo aadmii maiN aaj hooN, kal maiN us se baihtar ban_naa chaahoNgaa."

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

No way around a correlative construction! 😄

 

[aevynn]

I agree with @littlepond jii that sentence 3 of #6 is ungrammatical, and that a correlative really seems like the best way to express this thought. To add a couple more points:

maiN us admii [jo maiN aaj huuN] se ...
maiN us admii se [jo maiN aaj huuN] ...

The postposition can't be separated from the noun it heads, as you've done in the first phrase above. The second phrase is at least parse-able to me -- it sounds grammatical, I guess (cf. #5) -- but even then the resulting sentence just doesn't sound as natural and fluent as the correlative constructions in the OP or in #9. Probably part of the reason for this unnaturality is that this construction is trying to "interrupt the matrix clause with the relative clause" in English-like fashion, which is not that common in colloquial UH, as we discussed here:

Now it is also possible to interrupt the matrix clause with the relative clause, as is done in the English sentence (A):
(3) wo(h) waqt, jo ham_ne saath bitaayaa hai, kabhii merii yaadoN se miT nahiiN saktaa.
At least in the colloquial version of the language I'm exposed to, constructions like (1) or (2) would be far more common than (3) in speech.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

The postposition can't be separated from the noun it heads,

This is the piece of information I was missing! Thanks.
So this is not a matter of the comparisson, is a more general feature of HU.

If I wanted to say, for example, the son of the man I am today:

I cannot say:
us admii [jo maiN aaj huuN] kaa beTaa

and it is unclear an unidiomatic to say:
us admii kaa beTaa [jo maiN aaj huuN]

so I am left only with the internally headed correlative:
jo admii maiN aaj huuN, us_kaa beTaa ...

 

[littlepond]

so I am left only with the internally headed correlative:
jo admii maiN aaj huuN, us_kaa beTaa ...

Yes. Though a more elegant, natural phrasing would be something like "aaj jo maiN hooN, us kaa beTaa."

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

In order to practise this structure (i.e. a noun modified by a relative clause and being part of a postpositional complement and the same time), I input several examples in Spanish on Google translate, and the tool stubbornly subordinates in Hindi the opposite of what I intend to subordinate!
(I know that Google translate sucks, but it worries me that it does it so consistently).

For example, if I want to say: "I work with the hammer that father bought", Google translate gives me:
maiN us hathauRe se kaam kartaa huuN jise pitaa_jii ne kal xariidaa thaa
but I would have expected:
maiN jis hathauRe se pitaa_jii kal xariidaa thaa, us_se kaam kartaa huuN

Similarly, if I input (speaking as a woman): "I live with the man I love", Google translate gives me:
maiN us aadmii ke saath rɛhtii huuN, jise maiN pyaar kartii huuN
but I would have expected:
jis aadmii maiN pyaar kartii huuN, us_ke saath maiN rɛhtii huuN

Who is right, Google Translate or I?

 

[Qureshpor]

Who is right, Google Translate or I?

Google translate.

maiN jis hathauRe ko abbaa jaan (vaalid SaaHib) ne xariidah hai, us se kaam kartaa huuN.

jis aadamii se maiN pyaar kartii huuN, us ke saath maiN rahtii huuN.

 

[littlepond]

Who is right, Google Translate or I?

Google Translate is right. Among your two sentences, the first one makes no sense at all and the second one, after the addition of "se," is still not a natural way to speak.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

But what Google is saying on the 2nd sentence:
maiN us aadmii ke saath rɛhtii huuN, jise maiN pyaar kartii huuN

wouldn't it be instead:
"I live with that man, whom I love"?

 

[littlepond]

But what Google is saying on the 2nd sentence:
maiN us aadmii ke saath rɛhtii huuN, jise maiN pyaar kartii huuN

wouldn't it be instead:
"I live with that man, whom I love"?

Google's sentence means "I live with the man I love." The "whom" is implied in the English sentence. By the way, in the Google sentence, is it "jise" or "jis se"?

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

By the way, in the Google sentence, is it "jise" or "jis se"?

jise

which would be wrong, going by @Qureshpor jii's example correction.

But now I am confused.
@aevynn jii in #11 pointed out (when speaking about the man comparing himself with a previous self) that:

maiN us admii se [jo maiN aaj huuN] ... was "acceptable but unnatural"

So why the internally-headed correlative is recommendable in:

maiN [jaisaa aadmii aaj huuN], us_se achchhaa kal ban jaauN

but not recommendable in:

[jis aadamii se maiN pyaar kartii huuN], us_ke saath maiN rahtii huuN. ?

Both sentences look structurally very similar to me: we have a noun (coincidentally, aadmii in both) that is at the same time subordinated by a postposition, and being modified by a relative clause.