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Lesson Transcript

Assalam u Alaikum mera naam Afrah hai.
Hi, My name is Afrah. Welcome to UrduPod101.com’s “3 minat mein Urdu”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Urdu.
In the last lesson, you learned how to use the verb jaana which means "to go" in Urdu.
In this lesson, we will learn another very common Urdu verb. This is karna, which means "to do." But like in English, you’ll see that the meaning of this verb is quite broad and it can be found in many different situations.
Imagine someone asks you Tum kya kar rahe ho? if you’re a man or Tum kya kar rahi ho? if you’re a woman. This would be the informal way of asking "What are you doing?
So if you are doing your homework, for example, you might say main homework kar rahaa hoon if you’re a man or main homework kar rahi hoon if you’re a woman.
[slowly] main homework kar rahaa hoon
[slowly] main homework kar rahi hoon
Let’s break down this answer:
First we have main which is "I"
Then we have homework which of course means “homework.”
After this comes kar rahaa which is a conjugated form of the verb karna, meaning “to do.” It means something like “I am doing” when said by a male speaker. Kar rahi would be its feminine form.
And finally we have hoon which as you know is “am.”
main homework kar rahaa hoon
main homework kar rahi hoon
Let’s look at another example. If someone asks you to come and give him a hand but you are preparing dinner, you can say main khana paka raha hoon! which literally means "I am preparing the meal!" Here we are using raha for present continuous when said by a male speaker.
Raha changes into rahi for the first person feminine. For example, main khana paka rahi hoon.
For masculine and feminine plural, it changes into rahe, so it becomes hum khana paka rahe hain
Now it’s time for Afrah’s Advice.
Did you know that karna is related to the common word, “Karma?” Both are related to the Urdu word for acts or deeds. Though in English, the word is often used to express the idea that being good leads to good fortune and being bad leads to bad fortune, its original sense was closer to the modern Urdu in its meaning of “to do” something.
In this lesson, we learned how to use the verb karna and the word raha in many different contexts. I’m sure it will help you a lot!
In the next lesson we’ll learn another very useful phrase, acha lagna. Do you know what this means? I'll tell you all about it in the next “3 minat mein Urdu” lesson. Phir milenge.

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