Learn the basic rules of Hindi sentence structure
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Intro |
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| Alisha: How are sentences structured in Hindi? |
| Shakti: And are the rules rigid? |
| Alisha: At HindiPod101.com, we hear these questions often. In the following situation, Ben Lee, a foreign-exchange student, thinks he sees a famous Hindi actor while walking with a friend at New Delhi City's international airport. He gestures to his friend, Khushbu Khan, and says, |
| "I know him! That's Shah Rukh Khan!" |
| बेन: मैं इसे जानता हूँ! यह शाहरुख़ ख़ान है! (main iSe jaaNaTaa huun! yah saaharukh khaaN hai!) |
| Dialogue |
| बेन: मैं इसे जानता हूँ! यह शाहरुख़ ख़ान है! (main iSe jaaNaTaa huun! yah saaharukh khaaN hai!) |
| ख़ुशबू: इसे मैं भी जानता हूँ! (iSe main bhii jaaNaTaa huun!) |
| Alisha: Once more with the English translation. |
| बेन: मैं इसे जानता हूँ! यह शाहरुख़ ख़ान है! (main iSe jaaNaTaa huun! yah saaharukh khaaN hai!) |
| Alisha: "I know him! That's Shah Rukh Khan!" |
| ख़ुशबू: इसे मैं भी जानता हूँ! (iSe main bhii jaaNaTaa huun!) |
| Alisha: "I know him too!" |
Lesson focus |
| Alisha: In this lesson, you will learn about basic sentence structure in Hindi. We will also be talking about how rigid these rules are. |
| While sentences in English follow the subject-verb-object pattern, Hindi sentences follow the subject-object-verb pattern. I'll repeat: Hindi sentences follow the subject-object-verb pattern. In other words, instead of having the verb between the subject and object, as in English, the object comes between the subject and the verb. In both languages, the main subject comes first. Let's quickly discuss what we mean by these terms. |
| The subject, as I just pointed out, usually comes at the beginning of the sentence. It is a word that denotes the "actor" or "doer" in the sentence. Let's listen to an example quickly: |
| Shakti: मैं खाता हूँ। (main khaaTaa huun.) |
| Alisha: This sentence means "I eat" and the subject is "I" or |
| Shakti: मैं (main) |
| Alisha: The object of the sentence is the person or thing upon which the action is performed. It is usually placed just after the subject and before the verb. Here's an example. |
| Shakti: मैं फल खाता हूँ। (main phaL khaaTaa huun.) |
| Alisha: This means, "I eat fruit," and the object is "fruit" or |
| Shakti: फल (phaL) |
| Alisha: Finally, the verb describes the action and, in Hindi, it comes at the end of the sentence. An example is the word "eat" or |
| Shakti: खाता हूँ (khaaTaa huun). |
| Alisha: In the sentence, we've been using "I eat fruit," or |
| Shakti: मैं फल खाता हूँ। (main phaL khaaTaa huun.) |
| Alisha: you can hear the most basic Hindi sentence structure reflected—the subject-object-verb pattern. It is an example of a simple, declarative sentence in Hindi. In formal situations, this is the pattern to use but that doesn't mean it can't be altered in informal situations. Informally, one can use the same subject-verb-object pattern as in English. The sentence we've been using would then sound like this: |
| Shakti: मैं खाता हूँ फल। (main khaaTaa huun phaL.) |
| Alisha: Keep in mind, though, that this is really only applicable to informal settings. |
| Let's now look at how to form negative sentences in Hindi. In order to express the negative in Hindi, a word similar to the English "not" is used. It sounds like this: |
| Shakti: नहीं (Nahiin) |
| Alisha: In a negative sentence we place this word immediately after the object and right before the verb, like this: |
| Shakti: मैं फल नहीं खाता हूँ। (main phaL Nahiin khaaTaa huun.) |
| Alisha: In English, this means, "I do not eat fruit." One might use a sentence like this in response to a question such as "Do you eat fruit?" or |
| Shakti: क्या आप फल खाते हैं? (kyaa aap phaL khaaTe hain?) |
| Alisha: You can hear, in this sentence, that the word |
| Shakti: क्या (kyaa) |
| Alisha: has been placed at the beginning of the sentence. This word can be used to turn statements into questions. The statement, in this case, would have been: |
| Shakti: आप फल खाते हैं (aap phaL khaaTe hain) |
| Alisha: or "You eat fruit." Like our other example in this lesson, this sentence is a very simple one, but sometimes we need to say things that are a little more complex. This means we will need to add other words such as adverbs, adjectives, and other prepositional phrases into our basic sentence. Here's an example of how to add an adverb of frequency into the sentence. It means, "I eat fruit daily." |
| Shakti: मैं रोज़ फल खाता हूँ। (main roz phaL khaaTaa huun.) |
| Alisha: The adverb "daily" is |
| Shakti: रोज़ (roz) |
| Alisha: and, in this sentence, it is placed between the subject and the object. This is the usual place for adverbs of frequency, but that is not to say that all adverbs behave this way in Hindi. Sometimes, instead of talking about how often we do something, we might want to talk about when we do it. In that case, we need an adverb of time, like |
| Shakti: शाम को (saam ko) |
| Alisha: or "in the evening." Let's put it into our sentence about fruit: |
| Shakti: मैं शाम को फल खाता हूँ। (main saam ko phaL khaaTaa huun.) |
| Alisha: This means, "I eat fruit in the evening." You can hear that, in Hindi, the adverb of time is placed between the subject and object. This is usually true unless there is no object, in which case it is placed between the subject and the main verb. The same is true of words that denote a place. Listen to this example, which means, "Every evening I eat fruit in the office." |
| Shakti: मैं रोज़ शाम को दफ़्तर में फल खाता हूँ। (main roz saam ko DafTar men phaL khaaTaa huun.) |
| Alisha: Sometimes, we place the additional word or words between the object and the verb. This rule applies to words that explain how we do something or the manner in which we do it. If I like to eat fruit after cutting them, I would say: |
| Shakti: मैं फल काट कर खाता हूँ। (main phaL kaat kar khaaTaa huun.) |
| Alisha: or "I like to eat fruit after cutting them." At other times, we might want to add other objects to our sentence. Maybe you like milk as well as fruit. In that case, you could say something like: |
| Shakti: मैं रोज़ शाम को दूध के साथ फल खाता हूँ। (main roz saam ko DuuDH ke SaaTH phaL khaaTaa huun.) |
| Alisha: which means "Every evening, I eat fruit with milk." You might also want to be more descriptive when talking about the fruit you eat, in which case you will need an adjective. Perhaps you only eat fresh fruit. You might then say something like: |
| Shakti: मैं रोज़ ताज़े फल खाता हूँ। (main roz Taaze phaL khaaTaa huun.) |
| Alisha: which means "I eat fresh fruit every day." |
| Using adjectives and adverbs such as the ones we've talked about in this lesson will definitely make your sentences more interesting and will make you sound more proficient in Hindi. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Alisha: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue. Do you remember how Ben Lee says, "I know him! That's Shah Rukh Khan?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Shakti: मैं इसे जानता हूँ! यह शाहरुख़ ख़ान है! (main iSe jaaNaTaa huun! yah saaharukh khaaN hai!) |
| [Recall 2] |
| Alisha: Now, let's take a look at our second sentence. Do you remember how Khushbu Khan says, "I know him too?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Shakti: इसे मैं भी जानता हूँ! (iSe main bhii jaaNaTaa huun!) |
| Cultural Expansion |
| Alisha: Earlier, we talked about using the word |
| Shakti: क्या (kyaa) |
| Alisha: to turn a declarative sentence into an interrogative or question sentence that prompts for a yes or no answer. I pointed out that this word is placed at the beginning of the sentence, but if the interaction in which the language expression takes place is informal, one can also add this word at the end of the sentence. Instead of saying "Do you eat fruit?" like this: |
| Shakti: क्या आप फल खाते हैं? (kyaa aap phaL khaaTe hain?) |
| Alisha: You could say it like this: |
| Shakti: आप फल खाते हैं क्या? (aap phaL khaaTe hain kyaa?) |
| Alisha: or even this way: |
| Shakti: आप क्या फल खाते हैं? (aap kyaa phaL khaaTe hain?) |
| Alisha: Simple! Keep in mind that this only applies to informal situations though. |
| [Summary] |
| Alisha: In this lesson, you learned how to form simple and not-so-simple sentences in Hindi. You learned that Hindi sentence structure follows the subject-object-verb pattern and then you learned how to add other words like adverbs and adjectives into that pattern. You also learned how to make negative sentences and to form questions in Hindi. |
Outro |
| Alisha: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Shakti: फिर मिलेंगे! (phir miLenge!) |
| Alisha: See you soon! |
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