Learn a simple greeting and how sentence structures can change
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Neha: Namaste, I'm Neha. |
| Maya: Namaste, I'm Maya. Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 2, Simple Greetings in Hindi, Part 2. |
| Neha: In this lesson you'll learn how to ask "How are you?" in Hindi. |
| Maya: The conversation takes place on a street. |
| Neha: It's between Kamala and Mahima who are neighbors. |
| Maya: They are formal acquaintances and so they'll be using formal Hindi. Let's listen to their conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| महिमा (mahimaa): कमलाजी! आप कैसी हैं? (kamaLaajii! aap kaiSii hain?) |
| कमला (kamaLaa): अरे महिमाजी! मैं बिल्कुल ठीक हूँ। और आप कैसी हैं? (are mahimaajii! main biLkuL thiik huun. aur aap kaiSii hain?) |
| महिमा (mahimaa): मैं भी ठीक हूँ, धन्यवाद। (main bhii thiik huun, DHaNyavaaD.) |
| कमला (kamaLaa): आपका बेटा कैसा है? (aapakaa betaa kaiSaa hai?) |
| महिमा (mahimaa): वह बहुत अच्छा है, धन्यवाद। (vah bahuT acchaa hai, DHaNyavaaD.) |
| Maya: Now let's listen to it one time slowly. |
| महिमा (mahimaa): कमलाजी! आप कैसी हैं? (kamaLaajii! aap kaiSii hain?) |
| कमला (kamaLaa): अरे महिमाजी! मैं बिल्कुल ठीक हूँ। और आप कैसी हैं? (are mahimaajii! main biLkuL thiik huun. aur aap kaiSii hain?) |
| महिमा (mahimaa): मैं भी ठीक हूँ, धन्यवाद। (main bhii thiik huun, DHaNyavaaD.) |
| कमला (kamaLaa): आपका बेटा कैसा है? (aapakaa betaa kaiSaa hai?) |
| महिमा (mahimaa): वह बहुत अच्छा है, धन्यवाद। (vah bahuT acchaa hai, DHaNyavaaD.) |
| Maya: Now, let's listen to it with the English translation. |
| महिमा (mahimaa): कमलाजी! आप कैसी हैं? (kamaLaajii! aap kaiSii hain?) |
| Neha: "Kamala! How are you?" |
| कमला (kamaLaa): अरे महिमाजी! मैं बिल्कुल ठीक हूँ। और आप कैसी हैं? (are mahimaajii! main biLkuL thiik huun. aur aap kaiSii hain?) |
| Maya: "Oh Mahima! I am quite well. And how are you?" |
| महिमा (mahimaa): मैं भी ठीक हूँ, धन्यवाद। (main bhii thiik huun, DHaNyavaaD.) |
| Neha: "I am also good, thank you." |
| कमला (kamaLaa): आपका बेटा कैसा है? (aapakaa betaa kaiSaa hai?) |
| Maya: "How is your son?" |
| महिमा (mahimaa): वह बहुत अच्छा है, धन्यवाद। (vah bahuT acchaa hai, DHaNyavaaD.) |
| Neha: "He is very good, thank you." |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Maya: You know, Hindi can be a bit difficult for English speakers since all nouns in Hindi are either masculine or feminine. |
| Neha: And just like in French and Arabic, the sentence structure changes accordingly. |
| Maya: Yes, so some verbs and adjectives change according to the gender of their nouns, i.e. whether they are masculine or feminine and also according to their number, i.e. whether they are one or many. |
| Neha: That's right. |
| Maya: And possessive pronouns like "my" and "your" change according to the gender and the number of the thing being possessed and not the subject doing the possessing. |
| Neha: If this went over your head, don't worry about it. |
| Maya: We'll cover them one by one in our lessons. But for now, the only thing you have to keep in mind is that it is very important to know the gender of the nouns if you want to speak Hindi correctly! |
| Neha: That's right. |
| Maya: Okay, let's move on to the Vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Maya: The first word we shall see is... |
| Neha: आप (aap). |
| Maya: "you." Formal. |
| Neha: आ-प (aa-pa). आप (aap). |
| Maya: Next is... |
| Neha: कैसी (kaiSii). |
| Maya: "how." Female. |
| Neha: कै-सी (kai-Sii). कैसी (kaiSii). |
| Maya: Next is... |
| Neha: हैं (hain). |
| Maya: "are". Infinitive to-be. |
| Neha: हैं (hain). हैं (hain). |
| Maya: Next is... |
| Neha: Next is मैं (main). |
| Maya: "I." |
| Neha: मैं (main). मैं (main). |
| Maya: Next is... |
| Neha: ठीक (thiik). |
| Maya: "okay." |
| Neha: ठी-क (thii-ka). ठीक (thiik). |
| Maya: Next is... |
| Neha: हूँ (huun). |
| Maya: "am." Infinitive to-be. |
| Neha: हूँ (huun). हूँ (huun). |
| Maya: Next is... |
| Neha: धन्यवाद (DHaNyavaaD). |
| Maya: "thank you." |
| Neha: धन्-य-वा-द (DHaN-ya-vaa-Da). धन्यवाद (DHaNyavaaD). |
| Maya: Next is... |
| Neha: बेटा (betaa). |
| Maya: "son." |
| Neha: बे-टा (be-taa). बेटा (betaa). |
| Maya: Next is... |
| Neha: बहुत अच्छा (bahuT acchaa). |
| Maya: "very good." |
| Neha: बहुत अच्छा (bahuT acchaa). बहुत अच्छा (bahuT acchaa). |
| Maya: Last is... |
| Neha: वह (vah). |
| Maya: "he,", "she,", "it," "that." |
| Neha: व-ह (va-ha). वह (vah). |
| Maya: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Maya: Let's start with the word that's most fresh in our memory. The last word we covered was… |
| Neha: वह (vah). |
| Maya: वह (voh) is a third person singular pronoun that means "he," "she," "it," or "that." |
| Neha: It is used for people and things that are further away, whereas यह (yah) is used for people and things that are closer and it means "he" or "she" or "it" or "this." |
| Maya: You're saying that वह (vah) and यह (yah) are both "he" and "she"? |
| Neha: Yes. |
| Maya: Oh, that sounds complicated. |
| Neha: Well, it's not really all that complicated. We'll soon learn how to look at other things like the verb and adjective to figure out whether it's referring to a guy or a girl. But more on that later. |
| Maya: Okay then, the next word we'll look at is… |
| Neha: धन्यवाद (DHaNyavaaD). |
| Maya: Which is "thank you." It is a very useful word to know. |
| Neha: Very. And there are other ways you can say "thank you" in Hindi. |
| Maya: Yes, you can also say शुक्रिया (sukriyaa). |
| Neha: Listen and repeat, शुक्रिया (sukriyaa). |
| Maya: You can also use धन्यवाद (DHaNyavaaD) and शुक्रिया (sukriyaa) interchangeably. |
| Maya: Okay, on to the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Maya: The focus of this lesson is to learn about... |
| Neha: हैं (hain). |
| Maya: which means "are." |
| Neha: And also to learn how to ask "How are you?" in Hindi. We'll cover only the formal way of asking. |
| Maya: Which is... |
| Neha: आप कैसी हैं? (aap kaiSii hain?) |
| Maya: If you're asking a female. |
| Neha: आप कैसे हैं? (aap kaiSe hain?) |
| Maya: If you're asking a male, and finally… |
| Neha: आप सब कैसे हैं? (aap Sab kaiSe hain?) |
| Maya: If you're asking many people at once. |
| Neha: Let's break it down a bit. Here, आप (aap) is a formal "you," कैसी (kaiSii) or कैसे (kaiSe) means "how," and हैं (hain) means "are." |
| Maya: So literally, what we're saying is "You how are?" and that translates as "How are you?" |
| Neha: You can see that Hindi is a verb final language and follows the subject, object, verb order. Let's go over it one more time. |
| Maya: Sure, so what would you say if you wanted to ask Emily "How are you?" |
| Neha: Since Emily is a girl, we'd use the feminine case for "how," which is कैसी (kaiSii); so we'd say, आप कैसी हैं? (aap kaiSii hain?) |
| Maya: Listen and repeat. |
| Neha: आप कैसी हैं? (aap kaiSii hain?) |
| Maya: What would you say if you wanted to ask Tom, "How are you?" |
| Neha: So Tom is a guy, which means we'd have to use the masculine case for "how," which is कैसे (kaiSe); so we'd say आप कैसे हैं? (aap kaiSe hain?) |
| Maya: आप कैसे हैं? (aap kaiSe hain?) |
| Neha: Yes, very good! |
| Maya: The verb हैं (hain), which means "are," sounds a lot like the verb है (hai), which means "is." The difference between them is that हैं (hain), or "are," is nasalized while है (hai), or "is," is not nasalized. |
| Neha: Yes. Let's do one more example. So, listeners, how would you say, "How is she?" in Hindi? |
| Maya: Well, first of all you'd need to know what "she" is in Hindi. We've gone over this in the beginning of this lesson. It is |
| Neha: वह (vah). |
| Neha: Next, you need to know the feminine case for "how," which is कैसी (kaiSii). |
| Maya: Finally, all you need is the verb "is," which is है (hai), not nasalized. |
| Neha: So so we have, वह कैसी है? (vah kaiSii hai?) |
| Maya: "How is she?" |
| Neha: The general rule is: subject + कैसा (kaiSaa) or कैसी (kaiSii) + है (hai) or हैं (hain). |
| Maya: With the formal "you," i.e. आप (aap), it's always: आप (aap) + कैसे (kaiSe) or कैसी (kaiSii) + हैं (hain). |
| Neha: With “he” or “she,” i.e. वह (vah), it's always: वह (vah) + कैसा (kaiSaa) or कैसी (kaiSii) + है (hai). |
| Maya: If you want to use a person's name instead just use that for the subject. So to ask, "How is Tom?", you'd say…, |
| Neha: टॉम कैसे हैं? (taum kaiSe hain?) |
Outro |
| Maya: So listeners, can you now ask anybody how they are doing in Hindi? |
| Neha: Yes, you can! That's all for this lesson. In the lesson notes, you can find more examples and explanations for this topic, so be sure to read them! |
| Maya: Yes. Among other things, we also cover how to ask the same thing in casual and intimate forms in Hindi. |
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| Neha: Then like our Facebook page too! |
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| Maya: And if you like a lesson or series on HindiPod101.com... |
| Neha: ...let us know... |
| Maya: ...by clicking the "Like" button next to lesson or series. |
| Neha: Thank you for listening! |
| Maya: Until next time! |
| Neha: शुक्रिया और फिर मिलेंगे (sukriyaa aur phir miLenge)! |
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