Learn how to ask about someone's age
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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 “3 minat mein hinDii”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Hindi. |
| In the last two lessons, we learned the main usage of the verb hona, which means “to be” in Hindi. |
| In this lesson, we are going to learn another basic usage of the verb in the form - hoon and how to use it to talk about your age. |
| It’s normal for young people in India to ask each other’s age. Of course, it might be risky to ask people over 25! |
| To ask a female her age formally, say aap kiTne saal kii hain? |
| [slowly] aap kiTne saal kii hain? |
| If you’re asking a male, the kii will simply change to ke, so it becomes |
| aap kiTne saal ke hain? |
| [slowly] aap kiTne saal ke hain? |
| In informal Hindi, as we learned in the last lesson, we change the pronoun to Tum and also the sentence ending to-be verb to ho. |
| To ask a female informally: Tum kiTne saal kii ho? |
| And what would you say if you’re asking a male? Right! It’s Tum kiTne saal ke ho? |
| Now, when answering with your age, just use the “to-be” verb hoon, which means “am”. Just like we answer in English by saying “I am [so and so] years old.” |
| Here are some examples. |
| “I am 16” - main solah ka hoon |
| or |
| main solah ki hoon |
| “I am 25” - main pachiis ka hoon |
| or |
| “I am 25” - main pachiis ki hoon |
| Can you see what is happening here? We |
| start with the word main. then we add the number, solah, and end with ka hoon, “I am 16” |
| main means “I” |
| solah means “sixteen” |
| ka hoon is the male version of “to be” in the first person singular, similar to the english “am” |
| Did you notice the difference in the second example, main biis kii hoon? ka from the first example changed into kii. That’s because ka changes according to the gender of the subject. Remember? For male subjects it is ka and for female subjects it is kii. |
| Sometimes young Indian people won’t ask your age directly, but instead, will ask your birth year. |
| You might hear this question in an informal situation: |
| Tum kaunse sal ke ho? |
| [slowly] Tum kaunse sal ke ho? |
| This literally means “Of which year are you?” |
| You just have to answer using the two last figures of your birth year: |
| main bayaasii ka hoon which literally means “I am of 82.” |
| Now it’s time for Prerana’s Points |
| Were you born in the year 2000? Sorry, you can’t say that you are of zero-zero. You have to say the entire year. main do hazaar ka hoon. |
| In this lesson, we learned how to talk about your age and birthdate. Next time we’ll learn how to talk about possession. Have you ever wanted to ask someone if they have a car? |
| I'll be waiting for you in the next 3 minat mein hinDii!! |
| Phir milenge. See you then! |
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