Learn about many different ways you can answer 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 3 - Responding to the Question ‘How Are You?’ in Urdu. I’m John. |
| Afrah: Assalam u alaikum, I'm Afrah. |
| John: In this lesson you’ll learn the many different ways you can answer the question, "How are you?" in Urdu. The conversation takes place at a school. |
| Afrah: It's between Ali and Rani, who are waiting to pick their kids up from school. |
| John: They'll be using formal Urdu in order to be more respectful towards each other. |
| Afrah: Let's listen to their conversation. |
| LESSON DIALOGUE |
| علی: رانی، ہیلو! آپ کیسی ہیں؟ |
| رانی: ہیلو علی. میں اچهی ہوں، شکریہ. اور آپ؟ |
| علی: میں تھک گیا ہوں. |
| رانی: کیوں؟ آپ بیمار ہیں؟ |
| علی: نہیں، نہیں. میں آج روزے سے ہوں. اس لیے میں بهوکا بھی ہوں. |
| Afrah: Now let's listen to the same conversation at a slow speed. |
| Ali: Rani, Hello! Aap kaisi hain? |
| rani: Hello, Ali. Main achi hun, shukriya. Aur aap? |
| Ali: Main thak gaya hun. |
| rani: Kyun? Aap bemaar hain? |
| Ali: Nahin, nahin. Main aaj rozay say hun. Iss liye main |
| bhooka bhi hun. |
| John: Let's now listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Ali: Rani, Hello! Aap kaisi hain? |
| John: "Rani, hello! How are you?" |
| rani: Hello, Ali. Main achi hun, shukriya. Aur aap? |
| John: “Hello Ali. I am good, thank you. And you?" |
| Ali: Main thak gaya hun. |
| John: "I am tired." |
| rani: Kyun? Aap bemaar hain? |
| John: "Why? Are you sick?" |
| Ali: Nahin, nahin. Main aaj rozay say hun. Iss liye main |
| bhooka bhi hun. |
| John: " No, no. I am fasting today. So I am also hungry." |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Afrah: John, did you know that fasting is a common practice among Muslim followers in Pakistan and all across the world? |
| John: Really? |
| Afrah: Absolutely. So the conversation we just heard between Ali and Rani is very common in the sense that they will get benefits from fasting. |
| John: What benefits do they usually aim for? |
| Afrah: Well, the primary benefit or the mission of fasting is to get closer to God. People realize the importance of food and the pain of remaining hungry, so they appreciate food and also tend to help the poor and needy more as a result of fasting. |
| John: That sounds nice. |
| Afrah: Yeah, but fasting is not that easy, you know. Not eating or drinking even a little bit from before sunrise to sunset is a tough job. |
| John: Wow...seems like you really need a lot of faith and discipline. |
| Afrah: You do! |
| John: Okay, let’s move on to the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| John: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Afrah: [aap kaisi hain?] |
| John: How are you? |
| Afrah: [aa-p kai-si ha-in?] |
| Afrah: [aap kaisi hain?] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: [iss liye] |
| John: so, because |
| Afrah: [iss li-ye] |
| Afrah: iss liye [natural native speed] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: [achi hun] |
| John: am good |
| Afrah: [ach-i hu-n] |
| Afrah: [achi hun] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: [rozay say] |
| John: to fast |
| Afrah: [ro-zay sa-y] |
| Afrah: [rozay say] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: [beemar] |
| John: sick |
| Afrah: [bee-mar] |
| Afrah: [beemar] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: [kyun] |
| John: why |
| Afrah: [ky-un] |
| Afrah: [kyun] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: [thak gaya] |
| John: tired |
| Afrah: [tha-k ga-ya] |
| Afrah: [thak gaya] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: [hun] |
| John: am |
| Afrah: [hu-n] |
| Afrah: [hu-n] |
| John: Next we have.. |
| Afrah: [achi] |
| John: good |
| Afrah: [ach-i] |
| Afrah: [achi] |
| John: And last.. |
| Afrah: [bhooka] |
| John: hungry |
| Afrah: [bhoo-ka] |
| Afrah: [bhooka] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| John: Now, let's look at some of these words in more detail. |
| Afrah: The first word we'll look at is اچهی (achi). |
| John : It means "good" and is just as diverse a word as its English equivalent. Before we get further into it, we need to tell you something very important. |
| Afrah: Right. So, you can use اچهی only if you are a female or are talking about a female. |
| John: Sounds complicated? Not really. It's pretty straightforward. In Urdu, all nouns are either masculine or feminine and a lot of adjectives and verbs change accordingly. So if you are female and you want to say, "I am good,", you say… |
| Afrah:میں اچهی ہوں--mai-n achh-i hu-n, main achi hun. Where, میں means "I," اچهی means "good," and ہوں is the verb "am." |
| John: But if you're a male and you want to say "I am good," you say, |
| Afrah: میں اچها ہوں --ma-in ach-a hu-n, main acha hun. اچها is for male and اچهی is for female. |
| John: If you want to just say "good" on its own, like if you just want to agree to something or acknowledge something, then which form do you use? |
| Afrah: If you want to just say "good" on its own, like if you just want to agree to something or acknowledge something, you can use its masculine form اچها. |
| John: In the same way, the adjective "hungry" in Urdu has a feminine and a masculine case. |
| Afrah: That's right. If you are a female or are talking about a female, you'd use بهوکی and if you are a male or are talking about a male, you'd use بهوکا. |
| John: Okay, let’s move on to the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| John: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the verb form “to-be”, "am," and also to learn how adjectives change their forms in Urdu. |
| Afrah: Let's get started with the sentence we're already familiar with, میں اچهی ہوں when said by a female. |
| John: This literally means, "I good am." |
| Afrah: Remember that Urdu is a verb final language and follows the subject, object, verb order. |
| John: And if you want to say how you are feeling, that is, if you want to say something like "I am good, tired, hungry, sweaty, or whatever,", for instance, "I am" + an adjective, then the general rule is… |
| Afrah: [Main + the adjective + hun.] Where main is "I,", and hun is "am." |
| John: Sounds easy, right? And it is. The only thing you'd need to remember is to change the adjectives depending on whether you're a male or a female. But not for all. Some stay the same. |
| Afrah: That's right. In Urdu, there are two types of adjectives—inflecting and non-inflecting. |
| John: As their names might already suggest, inflecting adjectives change according to the gender and the number of the noun they are describing, whereas non-inflecting adjectives remain the same at all times. |
| Afrah: Don't worry. They're pretty easy to spot. Inflecting adjectives always end with ا (-a). |
| John: How do they change for the masculine and feminine? |
| Afrah: They stay the same for a masculine singular but for a feminine singular, ا (-a) changes into ای (-i). Do you remember اچها and اچهی? |
| John: I do! |
| Afrah: اچها means "good." It ends with an -a and therefore is an inflecting adjective. For males, it stays the same and is اچها while for females, a changes into i and it becomes اچهی. |
| John: Now let’s try to form a sentence. |
| Afrah: Okay. |
| John: So, how would you say, "I am thirsty" in Urdu if you are a male speaker? |
| Afrah: Well, "thirsty" in Urdu is پیاسا and is an inflecting adjective, but for males it stays the same. So, if we put it in the rule that we laid out earlier, which is [main + adjective +hun], it would be main pyasa hun. |
| John: Again, this means “I am thirsty.” |
| Afrah: And if you're a female, you'd just change pyasa to pyasi and you'd say, main pyasi hun. |
| John: Now that we're experts at using inflecting adjective for singular cases, non-inflecting adjectives are a piece of cake! |
| Afrah: That’s right! |
| John: So if you want to say, "I am okay" in Urdu , how would you phrase it? |
| Afrah: That's very easy. Since theek doesn't end with an -a or -i, it needs no changing. So, I'd say main theek hun regardless of what gender I am. |
| John: Listeners, in this lesson, we've only covered how to change adjectives according to genders in their singular cases, which means we still have to study how to change them for plural cases, and that will come in later lessons. |
| Afrah: But for now, we hope that you're a bit more comfortable with saying how you're feeling in Urdu. |
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 phir milenge! |
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