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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 ask "What" questions in Urdu. This time, we are going to ask questions using "Where".
Imagine you want to ask your friend where he or she is now. You will ask Tum kahaan ho? This means “Where are you?”
[slowly] Tum kahaan ho?
So let’s break down this question:
First we have tum, which is the informal “you”.
Next comes kahaan meaning “where”.
Finally, we have ho which is the verb “to be” which is always used with the informal “you”.
Altogether, it is Tum kahaan ho?, meaning "Where are you?"
So in Urdu, "Where" is mainly translated as kahaan. The question word is always stressed.
So for example, if you want to ask "Where do you live?" You will say Tum kahaan rehTe ho?
The question word is placed in the 2nd position. It is followed by the verb.
[slowly]Tum kahaan rehTe ho?
But be careful, because several variations of kahaan are possible in Urdu. For example, if you want to ask "Where do you come from?" you will use kahaan se instead of just kahaan
The question in Urdu, then, becomes Tum kahaan se aaye ho?
The word also changes if you want to ask for the destination. Here you’ll use kahaan ko.
This literally means "Where to?" This question phrase is often used when asking about your final destination. For example, to ask “where are you going”, you’d say Tum kahaan ko ja rahe ho?
An important thing to note here is that we can also omit the ko to mean the same thing and simply ask Tum kahaan ja rahe ho? which is just like asking “where are you going”? The ko, however makes it stronger.
The grammatical rule for kahaan, kahaan se or kahaan ko remains the same – they all have to be followed by a verb. For example...
in Tum kahaan rehTe ho? -> the verb is rehte meaning “to stay”
in Tum kahaan se aaye ho? the verb is aaye meaning "to come"
in Tum kahaan ko ja rahe ho? the verb is ja rahe meaning “to go”
Let’s look back at all the ways to translate "Where" in Urdu:
- kahaan is the basic "where" as in Tum *kahaan* rehTe ho? meaning "Where do you live?"
-kahaan se is the question phrase used to ask “from where?” as in Tum *kahaan se* aaye ho? meaning "Where do you come from?"
- kahaan ko is used to ask for the destination as in Tum kahaan ko ja rahe ho? meaning "Where are you going to?"
Now it’s time for Afrah’s Advice.
People sometimes also use the word kidhar instead of kahaan. Both these words can be used to ask the question “where” or “which direction”. For example, you could also say Tum kidhar ho? to ask “where are you”
In this lesson, you learned how to use the Urdu word for "Where", kahaan, and also its different variations. Now you can avoid getting lost! In the next lesson we’ll learn more about asking questions, this time using "When" in Urdu. I'll be waiting for you in the next 3 minat mein Urdu lesson. Phir milenge.

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