Lesson Notes

Unlock In-Depth Explanations & Exclusive Takeaways with Printable Lesson Notes

Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.

Or sign up using Facebook
By clicking Join Now, you agree to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and to receive our email communications, which you may opt out at any time.
Already a Member?

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 talk about nationality. In this lesson we will continue to talk about the use of the verb “to be”, hona.
This verb is also used to talk about location, to say things like "I am in the street" or "He is in the room", so it's very useful!
When you want to know where someone is in a formal situation, you would ask Aap kahaan hain? That means "Where are you?"
This is a very useful phrase and people use it often when they’re talking to people on the phone.
[slowly] Aap kahaan hain?
Let's break it down.
Aap is the formal word for “you”.
Next is the question word kahaan meaning "where.” In Urdu, question words begin with the k- sound
Then finally we have hain, the conjugated form of the “to be” verb hona, that is used with the pronoun aap.
As we said in the previous lesson, hona doesn’t change according to gender, so this phrase can be used by both men and women.
Aap kahaan hain?
For informal situations, we simply replace the formal “you,” which is aap, with the informal Tum. And because we are changing aap, we also have to change hain to ho. Does this sound confusing?
Remember that with the formal pronoun aap, we use hain, and with the informal pronoun Tum, we use ho. So it becomes,
Tum kahaan ho?
[slowly] Tum kahaan ho?
Answering this question is very easy! You just say main, meaning “I”, then the place where you are, then say mein and then hoon.
mein means “at” or “in”. In Urdu it comes after the location it refers to.
hoon is the verb “to be” and is equivalent to “am” in this sentence.
Please don’t confuse mein, meaning “at” or “in”, with main, which means “I”.
[slow] mein
[slow] main
Now let’s see a few examples...
"I am in the market" would be Main bazaar mein hoon.
[slowly] Main bazaar mein hoon
"I am at the office" would be Main DafTar mein hoon.
[slowly] Main DafTar mein hoon
"I am in a meeting" would be Main aik meeting mein hoon.
[slowly] Main aik meeting mein hoon.
Another useful expression with the verb hoon is when you answer the phone. To give your name, simply say main, then your name, then hoon.
So when I pick up the phone I often say Main Afrah hoon. It’s really simple!
Let’s review the very important verb hona, or “to be”, which changes forms depending on the sentence.
So far, we’ve looked at three of its forms - hoon, hain, and ho as in:
main hoon meaning “I am”
aap hain meaning “you are” in the formal form
and Tum ho also meaning “you are” but in the informal form.
Urdu follows the Subject- Object-Verb Order, so here, these “to be” verbs hoon, hain and ho go at the end of the sentence.
Now it’s time for Afrah’s Advice.
Here’s a really useful sentence that uses the verb hoon. If, while in Pakistan, you get lost, you can go up to a friendly-looking person and say: main kahan hoon, barah e meharbani meri maDaD kijiye. Literally, this means: “Where am I? Please help me.”
In this lesson, you learned how to talk about your location thanks to the verb hona. Next time we’ll learn how to talk about age in Urdu. Do you want to know how to ask somebody’s age? If not, I’ll show you how in the next 3 minat mein Urdu” lesson. Phir milenge.

Comments

Hide