Learn how to ask "Where?"
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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 HindiPod101.com’s “Hindi in 3 Minutes.” The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Hindi. |
| In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "What" questions in Hindi. |
| This time, we are going to ask questions using the question word "Where?" |
| Question words always occur in the second position in non yes-no question sentences. |
| Imagine you want to ask your friend where he or she is now. You will ask him Tum kahaan ho? This is the way you ask “Where are you?” |
| [slowly] Tum kahaan ho? |
| So let’s break down this answer: |
| First we had: |
| Tum, which is the informal “you” in Hindi. |
| kahaan means “where” |
| ho is the to-be verb “am” which is always used with the informal you. |
| Altogether it is Tum kahaan ho?, "Where are you?" |
| So in Hindi, "Where" is mainly translated as kahaan. The question word is always stressed. |
| So for example, if you want to ask "Where do you live?" You will say Tum kahaan rehTe ho? |
| The question word is placed in the 2nd position. after it comes the verb. |
| But be careful, because several variations of kahaan are possible in Hindi. For example, if you want to ask "Where do you come from?" you will use kahaan se instead of just kahaan |
| The question in Hindi, then, becomes Tum kahaan se aaye ho? |
| The word also changes if you want to insist on the destination. If you say, for example, kahaan ko |
| This literally means "Where to?" This question formula kahaan ko is often used when asking about your final destination. For example to ask “where are you going”, you’d say Tum kahaan ko ja rahe ho? |
| An important thing to note here is that we can also omit the ko to mean the same thing and simply ask Tum kahaan ja rahe ho? which is just like asking “where are you going”? The ko, however makes it stronger. |
| The grammatical rule for kahaan, kahaan se or kahaan ko remains the same: they all have to be followed by a verb. |
| Tum kahaan rehTe ho? - here the verb is rehte “to stay” |
| Tum kahaan se aaye ho? here the verb is aaye "to come" |
| Tum kahaan ko ja rahe ho? Here the verb is ja rahe “to go” |
| Now it’s time for Prerana’s Points |
| People sometimes also use the word kidhar instead of kahaan. Both these words can be used to ask the question “where” or (in) which direction. |
| For example, we could also say Tum kidhar ho? to ask “where are you” |
| Before ending this lesson, Let’s look back at all the ways to translate "Where" in Hindi: |
| - kahaan is the basic "Where" as in "Where do you live?" Tum kahaan rehTe ho? |
| -kahaan se is insisting on the origin or the starting point, as in "Where do you come from?" Tum kahaan se aaye ho?? |
| - kahaan ko is insisting on the destination or arrival point, as in "Where are you going to?" |
| Tum kahaan ko ja rahe ho? |
| In this lesson, we learned how to use the Hindi word for "Where", kahaan, and also its different variations. |
| Now you can avoid getting lost! |
| In the next lesson we’ll learn more about asking questions, this time using "When" in Hindi. I'll be waiting for you with the answer in the next Hindi in 3 Minutes lesson. |
| Phir milenge. See you then! |
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