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Lesson Transcript

Assalam u Alaikum mera naam Afrah hai.
Hi, My name is Afrah. Welcome to UrduPod101.com’s “Teen minat mein Urdu”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Urdu.
In the last lesson, you learned how to make plans in Urdu. In this lesson, we are going to learn about the verb “to be”, hona. You will also learn how to ask the question “where are you from” and how to answer it with your nationality.
When you meet a new person in Pakistan, they might ask you Aap kahaan se hain? This means "Where are you from?"
[slow] Aap kahaan se hain
Let’s break it down:
You should be familiar with aap, the formal word for "you."
The next word kahaan is the question word "where."
Then comes se meaning "from."
And finally, hain is the conjugated form of the verb “to be”, hona, that is used with the pronoun aap. It is similar to the English “are”
Once again it is:
Aap kahaan se hain?
This question can be used when speaking to both men and women because the verb “to be”, hoon, is the same for any gender.
Answering this question is very easy! Just say Main then your country name, and then se hoon.
For example, Main roos se hoon.
[slowly] main roos se hoon.
This means “I am from Russia”.
If you’re not from Russia, then just replace roos with your own country.
Main japan se hoon means "I am from Japan."
Main amriika se hoon means "I am from America."
Main chiin se hoon means "I am from China."
You can also answer the question “Where are you from?” by saying your nationality instead of which country you are from.
The pattern is main + your nationality + hoon.
Remembering the vocabulary for most nationalities is very easy! Just add the sound i to the end of the name of a country. Be careful, though, because the rule does not hold true for all countries. Let's take a look at some examples.
If you are Japanese, you will say:
Main japani hoon.
If you are Chinese, you will say:
main chiini hoon
If you are German however, then the pattern would be different. You need to remove the y at the end of the name Germany so it will be:
Main German hoon.
To return the question you can simply say aur aap? which is "And you?" in a polite way.
[slowly] aur aap?
Now it’s time for Afrah’s Advice
Islamic Republic of Pakistan is Pakistan’s official name, but people normally use just Pakistan. The name Pakistan has its roots in the religion Islam. “Pakistan” literally means “clean land”.
In this lesson you learned how to talk about nationalities. Next time we’ll continue our study of the “to be” verb hoon, and we'll see how to use it to talk about locations. By the way, do you know how to ask someone where they are in Urdu? You’ll learn this and many other phrases in the next Teen minat mein Urdu” lesson. Phir milenge.

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