Learn how to ask "Who?"
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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 hinDi.” The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Hindi. |
| In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "When" questions in Hindi. |
| This time, we are going to ask questions with the word for "Who?" |
| Imagine you want to ask your friend about the attractive new girl at school. |
| Here, the question you can ask is vah nayii ladkii kaun hai? |
| “Who is that new girl?” |
| [slowly] vah nayii ladkii kaun hai |
| So let’s break down this question: |
| First we had: |
| vah, the word for “that”. |
| nayii meaning “new”. Like all adjectives it changes depending on whether it is connected to a masculine or feminine noun. Since it is referring to a girl we use nayii. It becomes naya when the subject is masculine. |
| kaun is the basic translation of "Who" in Hindi. |
| hai is the word for “is”, the verb “to be” |
| All together it is vah nayii ladkii kaun hai |
| So in Hindi, "Who" is kaun. You can use it whenever you want to ask about someone's identity. |
| For example, if you want to ask "Who are these people?" You will say yah log kaun hain? when talking about a group of unknown persons. |
| Unlike in English, the subject here is followed by the question word Who which is then followed by the verb. |
| kaun only works for people, so you can't use it to ask information about things or places. |
| In these cases, we add the postpositions ne, ko, se, mein, par and kaa to the question word. But here the question word kaun changes to kis. So, to ask who did something, for example. |
| If you are in a museum for instance, you can ask yah tasviir kisne banaayii? This means "Who made this picture? |
| Another phrase with kis that is used very often, is kis ki? In this case, the meaning is different as it can be translated to "kiski" |
| So if you want to ask "Whose pencil is it?" you will have to say yah kiskii pencil hai? |
| If we break down this question, it is: |
| yah means “this” |
| kiskii which is "whose" |
| pencil which means "pencil." |
| And finally, hai which means is. |
| You can also use the word kiske liye to ask "for which person is it?" In Hindi, we use the formula kiske liye? |
| So if you want to know "For which person is this piece of cake?" It will be yah cake kiske liye hai? |
| Now it’s time for Prerana’s Points |
| If someone that you didn't expect is knocking at your door in India, the common question you can ask is kaun hai? before opening the door. |
| This literally means "Who is it?" in a really polite way. |
| Another very casual way to ask it is kaun? which simply means “who” but if your tone is questioning, it means the same thing as kaun hai? |
| Before ending this lesson, Let’s go back and look at all the ways to translate "What" in Hindi: |
| - kaun is the basic "Who" as in vah kaun hai? |
| - kiskii is insisting on the ownership, it is the equivalent of "Whose", as in "Whose pencil is it?" yah kiskii pencil hai? |
| - kiske liye, which is the direct translation of "For who?" As in "For who is this piece of cake?" yah cake kiske liye hai? |
| In this lesson, we learned how to use the word for "Who" which is kaun in Hindi, and also its variations. |
| Now you can easily know who is who! |
| Next lesson will be the last of this series. |
| We will deal with the last but not least common question word kya. Do you know what this means? 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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