Learn how to ask the question "How are you?"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| John: Hi everyone, and welcome back to UrduPod101.com. This is Absolute Beginner, Season 1 Lesson 2 - Simple Greetings in Urdu.. I’m John. |
| Afrah:Assalam u Alaikum, I'm Afrah. |
| John : In this lesson you'll learn how to ask the question “How are you?” in Urdu. The conversation takes place on a street. |
| Afrah: It's between Kamal and Mahima who are neighbors. |
| John: They are formal acquaintances and so they'll be using formal Urdu. Let's listen to the conversation. |
| LESSON DIALOGUE |
| ماہیما: کمال جی! آپ کیسے ہیں؟ |
| کمال: اوہ ماہیما! میں بالکل ٹھیک ہوں. اور آپ کیسی ہیں؟ |
| میں بھی اچھی ہوں، آپ کا شکریہ. |
| کمال: آپ کا بیٹا کیسا ہے؟ |
| ماہیما: وہ بہت اچھا ہے، آپ کا شکریہ. |
| John: Now let's listen to the same conversation at a slow speed. |
| MAHIMA: Kamalaji! Aap kaisay hain? |
| KAMAL: Are Mahimaji ! Main bilkul theek hun. Aur aap kaisi hain? |
| MAHIMA: Main bhi achi hun, aap ka shukriya. |
| KAMAL: Aap ka baita kaisa hai? |
| MAHIMA: Woh bohat acha hai, aap ka shukriya. |
| John: Now let's listen to the conversation with English translation. |
| MAHIMA: Kamalaji! Aap kaisay hain? |
| John: Kamal! How are you? |
| KAMAL: Are Mahimaji ! Main bilkul theek hun. Aur aap kaisi hain? |
| John: Oh Mahima! I am quite well. And how are you? |
| MAHIMA: Main bhi achi hun, aap ka shukriya. |
| John: I am also good, thank you. |
| KAMAL: Aap ka baita kaisa hai? |
| John: How is your son? |
| MAHIMA: Woh bohat acha hai, aap ka shukriya. |
| John: He is very good, thank you. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| John: You know, Urdu can be a bit difficult for English speakers since all nouns in Urdu are either masculine or feminine. |
| Afrah: And just like in French and Arabic, the sentence structure changes accordingly. |
| John: Yes, so some verbs and adjectives change according to the gender of their nouns, for instance, whether they are masculine or feminine and also according to their number. In other words, if you’re talking about one thing or many. |
| Afrah: Possessive pronouns like “my” and “your” change according to the gender and the number of the thing being possessed and not the subject doing the possessing. |
| John: I'm sure all this went over your head. But don't worry about it. |
| Afrah: We'll cover them one by one in our lessons. |
| John: For now, the only thing you have to keep in mind is that it’s very important to know the gender of the nouns if you want to speak Urdu correctly! |
| VOCAB LIST |
| John: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Afrah: وہ [natural native speed] |
| John: he/she/it/that |
| Afrah: وہ [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Afrah: وہ [natural native speed] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: بہت اچھا [natural native speed] |
| John: very good [natural native speed] |
| Afrah: بہت اچھا [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Afrah: بہت اچھا [natural native speed] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: آپ [natural native speed] |
| John: you (formal) |
| Afrah: آپ [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Afrah: آپ [natural native speed] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: میں [natural native speed] |
| John: I |
| Afrah: میں [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Afrah: میں [natural native speed] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: کیسی [natural native speed] |
| John: how (feminine) |
| Afrah: کیسی [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Afrah: کیسی [natural native speed] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: ٹھیک [natural native speed] |
| John: okay |
| Afrah: ٹھیک [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Afrah: ٹھیک [natural native speed] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: آپ کا شکریہ [natural native speed] |
| John: thank you |
| Afrah: آپ کا شکریہ [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Afrah: آپ کا شکریہ [natural native speed] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: بیٹا [natural native speed] |
| John: child, son |
| Afrah: بیٹا [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Afrah: بیٹا [natural native speed] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: ہوں [natural native speed] |
| John: am |
| Afrah: ہوں [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Afrah: ہوں [natural native speed] |
| John: And last.. |
| Afrah: ہیں [natural native speed] |
| John: are |
| Afrah: ہیں [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Afrah: ہیں [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Afrah: Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| John: Let's start with the word that's most fresh in our memory. The last word we covered was… |
| Afrah: وہ woh. |
| John: This is a third person singular pronoun that means “he/she/it or that”.. |
| Afrah: It is used for people and things that are further away, whereas یہ yeh is used for people and things that are closer and it means “he/she/it/ or this”. |
| John: You're saying that these words are used for both male and female? |
| Afrah: Yes. وه woh and یہ yeh are used for both male and female. |
| John: Well, that sounds complicated. |
| Afrah: Actually, it's not really all that complicated. We will learn how to look at other things like the verb and adjective to figure out whether it's referring to a guy or a girl. But more on that later. |
| John: Okay then, the next word we'll look at is… |
| Afrah: شکریہ shukriya. |
| John: Which is “thank you”. It’s a very useful word to know. |
| Afrah: Listen and repeat, shukriyaa, ,shuk-ri-ya, shukriya. |
| John: Okay, now let’s move on to the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| John: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the verb “to be”. |
| Afrah: Yes, you’ll learn the verb “to be” ہیں (hain) and also about how to ask “How are you?” in Urdu. We'll cover only the formal way of asking. |
| John: Which is.. |
| Afrah: Aap kaisay hain... |
| John: If you're asking a female. |
| Afrah:' Aap kaisi hain... |
| John: If you're asking many people at once, then... |
| Afrah: Aap sab kaisay hain… |
| John: Okay. Now let’s take a look at the grammatical structure. |
| Afrah: Sure. Let's break it down a bit. Here, Aap is a formal way of saying “you”, kaisay or kaisi means “how”, and hain means “are”.. |
| John: So literally, what we're saying is “You how are?” and that translates to “How are you?” |
| Afrah: You can see that Urdu is a verb final language and follows the subject, object, verb order. Let's go over it one more time. |
| John: Sure, so what would you say if you wanted to ask “Emily, How are you?” |
| Afrah: Since Emily is a girl, we'd use the feminine case for “how”, which is kaisi...so we'd say, Aap kaisi hain? |
| John: Listen and repeat. |
| Afrah: Aap kaisi hain, aa-p kai-si ha-in, aap kaisi hain? |
| John: What would you say if you wanted to ask Tom, “How are you?” |
| Afrah: So Tom is a guy, which means we'd have to use the masculine case for “how”, which is kaisay...so we'd say, aap kaisay hain? The verb hain, which means “are”, sounds a lot like the verb hai, which means “is”… |
| John: I see. There is a subtle difference between the two sounds. |
| Afrah: Yes. The difference between them is that hain, or “are”, is nasalized while hai, or “is”, is not nasalized. Let's do one more example. So, listeners, how would you say, “How is she?” in Urdu? |
| John: Well, first of all, you'd need to know the word “she” in Urdu. |
| Afrah: We've gone over this in the beginning of this lesson. Do you remember? It’s وہ Woh. |
| John: Next, you need to know the feminine case for “how”, which is........... |
| Afrah: kaisi. |
| John: Finally, all you need is the verb “is,” which is... |
| Afrah: hai. |
| John: It’s not nasalized, right? |
| Afrah: Right! So, we have, Woh kaisi hai? |
| John: “How is she?” |
| Afrah: The general rule is [subject + kaisay], or [kaisi+ hai or hain]. |
| John: Can you explain when to say “you,” “he,” or “she?” |
| Afrah: Sure. With the formal “you”, or aap, it's always [aap plus+ kaisay or kaisi plus+ hain]. |
| With “he or she”, in other words, woh, it's always [woh plus +kaisa or kaisi plus+ hai]. |
| John: If you want to use a person's name instead, just use that for the subject. So to ask, “How is Tom?”, you'd say… |
| Afrah: Tom kaisa hai? |
| John: So listeners, can you now ask anybody how they are doing in Urdu? |
| Afrah: Yes, you can! |
Outro |
| John: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Afrah: Shukriya aur phr milenge! |
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