Learn how to ask "What?"
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| Assalam u Alaikum mera naam Afrah hai. |
| Hi, My name is Afrah. Welcome to UrduPod101.com’s “Urdu in three minutes”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Urdu. |
| In the last lesson, we learned how to use the verb aanaa. In this lesson, we will jump into our series dedicated to question words in Urdu. Our first question word is not only the most common, but sometimes it is also used as an interjection. The word we are talking about is “what” in English. You’ll see that there are many ways to translate it in Urdu. |
| So imagine you want to ask your friend "What are you doing?" How will you do it? |
| You will ask Tum kia kar rahay ho? |
| [slowly] Tum Kia kar rahay ho? |
| So let’s break down this question: |
| Tum is the informal word for "you" |
| Kia is the question word "What" in Urdu. |
| kar rahay is the present tense of the verb karna meaning “do”. It is equivalent to “doing” |
| ho is the verb “to be” which is used with Tum |
| So altogether, it is “What are you doing?” |
| Tum Kia kar rahay ho? |
| In English if you want to ask a question, you have to change the verb order. For |
| example, if you wanted to turn the statement, "This is your house." into a question, you'd say, "Is this your house?" |
| Well, we have some good news. None of this |
| is necessary in Urdu! In Urdu, sentences can be changed to questions just by adjusting the tone of your speech. |
| Here’s an example. A statement that can be made by a female speaker is main aapki maDaD kar sakTi hoon. This means “I can help you.” To change this to mean "Can I help you?" simply change the tone. Like this - main aapki maDaD kar sakTi hoon? |
| Here’s how to say it for male speakers - |
| main aapki maDaD kar sakTa hoon. |
| main aapki maDaD kar sakTa hoon? |
| Now, instead of turning statements into questions with just the change of tone, you |
| can also add the word Kia meaning "what" for emphasis. It always goes at the |
| beginning of the question. |
| For example: |
| Kia main apki maDaD kar sakTi hoon? |
| Kia main apki maDaD kar sakTa hoon? |
| "Can I help you?" |
| Now take the example “This is your house.” In Urdu, that would be Yah apka ghar hai. Let’s see how to turn this statement into a question. |
| If you were to ask someone if the house belongs to the person you’re talking to, you could say Yah apka ghar hai? |
| This means "Is this your house?" |
| To emphasize the question, just add the word Kia at the beginning of the sentence - Kia yah apka ghar hai? |
| "Is this your house?" |
| Now it’s time for Afrah’s Advice. |
| The question word kia is also used in exclamations. For example, when you look at a beautiful garden, you could say |
| Kia sundar bagichaa hai! |
| This means “What a beautiful garden!” |
| In this lesson, we learned how to use the Urdu word "What" in different kinds of sentences. |
| In the next lesson, we will talk about the Urdu equivalent for the word "Where". |
| Do you know it already? I can promise it’s easier than "what"! |
| I'll be waiting for you with the answer in the next lesson. Phir milenge. |
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