Learn how to ask where somebody is
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| namasTe meraa naam preranaa hai. aap se milkar khushi hui. |
| Hi, My name is Prerana. Nice to meet you. |
| Welcome to HindiPod101.com’s “Tiin minat mein hinDii”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Hindi. |
| In the last lesson, we learned how to talk about nationality. In this lesson we will continue to learn the use of the verb “to-be” : hona. |
| This verb is also used to talk about location, to say things like "I am in the street" or "He is in the room", so it's very useful! |
| When you want to know where someone is, what would you say? |
| In a formal situation you could ask aap kahaan hain? That means "Where are you?" |
| This is a very useful phrase and people use it often when talking to someone on the phone. |
| [slowly] aap kahaan hain? |
| Let's break it down. |
| aap is the formal word for “you”. You know by now that aap can be used for second person singular or plural, and when speaking to people senior to you in age or rank. aap is also safe for formal situations. |
| kahaan is "where.” In Hindi, question words begin with the k- sound |
| hain is the form of hona, or “to be” that is used with the pronoun aap. It is similar to the English “are” |
| For informal situations, we simply replace the formal “you” which is aap with the informal “you” which is Tum.. |
| But something else also needs to be changed: the verb hain. Since we are using tum, the informal “you”, we need to use ho instead of hain. Does it sound confusing? |
| Just remember one simple rule! |
| With the formal pronoun aap, we use hain. |
| With the informal pronoun Tum, we use ho. |
| So it becomes, |
| Tum kahaan ho? |
| [slowly] Tum kahaan ho? |
| Answering this question is very easy! You just say main + the place where you are + mein hoon |
| mein means “at or in”. In Hindi it comes after the location it refers to. |
| hoon means “am” |
| Please don’t confuse mein, “at” or “in”, with main, which means “I”. |
| So for example, you can say main bazaar mein hoon which is "I am in the market" |
| [slowly] main bazaar mein hoon |
| Now let’s see a few other possible answers: |
| "I am at the office" would be main DafTar mein hoon |
| "I am in a meeting" would be main meeting mein hoon |
| Another useful expression with the verb “to be” - hoon - is when you answer the phone. To introduce your name you can say main + your name + hoon |
| So when I pick up the phone I often say main prerana hoon. It is really simple! |
| Now it’s time to review the very important verb hona, or “to be”, which changes forms depending on the sentence. |
| So far, we’ve looked at three of its forms: hoon, hain and ho |
| In this lesson we just focussed on its usage for first person singular and second person singular sentences. |
| main hoon means “I am” |
| aap hain means “You are (Formal)” |
| Tum ho means “ You are (Casual)” |
| Hindi follows the Subject- Object-Verb Order, so here, these “to be” verbs hoon, hain and ho go at the end of the sentence. |
| Now it’s time for Prerana’s Points. |
| Here’s a really useful sentence that uses the verb “hoon”. If, while in India, you ever get lost, you can go up to a friendly-looking person and say: main kahaan hoon, kripya meri maDaD kiijiye |
| Literally, this means: |
| where am I, please help me |
| [slowly] main kahaan hoon, kripya meri maDaD kiijiye |
| In this lesson we learned how to talk about your location thanks to verb hona. Next time we’ll learn how to talk about ages in Hindi. So do you want to know how to ask somebody’s age? I’ll be waiting for you in the next 3 minat mein Hindi” |
| Phir milenge. See you then! |
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