This lesson is going to focus on vocabulary, because after all, you can know all the grammar but if you don’t know any words, you still can’t say anything. People use verbs all the time, so let’s start here.
Some of the most common verbs are:
होना - hona - to be
करना - karna - to do
बनाना - banana - to make
लेना - lena - to take
देना - dena - to give
आना - aana - to come
जाना - jaana - to go
देखना - dekhna - to see, to look
सुनना - sunna - to hear, to listen
बैठना - baithna - to sit
हँसना - hansna - to laugh (sometimes also to smile)
सोना - sona - to sleep (in some dialects this also means to lie down)
जागना - jaagna - to wake (one’s self)
Now, Hindi has a very common thing called “compound verbs” where you take a noun or adjective and add a verb right after it (most commonly karna) to express doing that thing. The noun or adjective stays the same (you don’t have to worry about any cases or postpositions), while the verb takes the tense markings.
Some common ones are:
काम करना - kaam karna - to work
पढ़ाई करना - padhai karna - to study, to do studies
शुरु करना - shuru karna - to start
बंद करना - band karna - to close, to turn off
तय करना - tay karna - to decide
In the simple present tense it works like this:
मैं काम करती हूँ। main kaam kartee hoon. - I (f) work.
आप पढ़ाई करते हैं। aap padhai karte hain. - you (m, polite) study.
This is an extremely useful structure to know, for one reason: 90% of loan words from English are used as compound verbs with karna. Hindi speakers use a lot of English in their vocabulary, so if you don’t know the word for something, you can stick ANY English word into this structure and chances are very good you’ll be understood. In fact, you might be right and sound natural!
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn the actual Hindi words for things - you absolutely should, if only for the sake of linguistic preservation but also because many of them are used - but when you’re practicing speaking and want to express yourself? This will take you a long way.
Some commonly used words (and their slightly less common shuddh hindi counterparts) are:
dance karna डैंस करना (नाचना naacna) to dance
count karna कउंट करना (गिनना ginna) to count
cancel karna कैंसेल करना (रद्द करना radd karna) to cancel
choose karna चूज़ करना (चुनना cunna) to choose
Example: हम सब लोग रात भर डैंस करते हैं। hum sab log raat bhar dance karte hain. We all dance all night long.
Bonus words:
सब - sab - all, every
लोग - log - people (only exists in the plural)
रात - raat (f) - night
दिन - din (m) - day
भर - bhar - entire, the whole time
Always same …
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Italian: sono stanco
German: ich bin müde
French: je suis fatigué
Hindi: main thak gaya/i hoon
Russian: я устал/а
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Embrace the best kind of ignorance in order to overcome the worst kind of ignorance.
The not knowing is what drives science in the first place.
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