Thursday, September 27, 2012

Possessive Pronouns : का kaa

In today’s we’re going to learn all about the Hindi word का kaa. This word is super common, it comes up so, so much so this lesson is going to be important! Ready?
Ok so your first question is probably, what does का kaa even mean? Well, we usually translate it as either ‘s’ or ‘of’. It’s used to show ownership, to show that someone or something ‘owns’ something else.
Let me tell you one more thing and then we’ll jump straight into looking at some examples! का kaa is a Postposition, just as we learnt about in . This means that the noun before का kaa must be in the oblique case, as we saw in . I’ll explain more as about this we go though. Anyway, ready to see an example?

बिल्ली का खाना billee kaa khaanaa - The Cat’s food.
So what’s happened here? Well, it’s so easy, we have बिल्ली का billee kaa - which means “the cat’s” and then we have खाना khaanaa - which means food. So all together we have बिल्ली का खाना billee kaa khaanaa - The Cat’s food. Following? Ready for another example?

शाहिद का घर shaahid kaa ghar - Shahid’s House
So what have we done this time? Well, just like last time we have used शाहिद का shaahid kaa to mean “Shahid’s” (Shahid is an Indian males name if you didn’t know!) and then we simply have घर ghar - house. So all together it’s शाहिद का घर shaahid kaa ghar - Shahid’s House. Simple!
Now, just like the Possessive Pronouns we’ve covered in the last few lessons, का kaa changes to के ke when whats ‘owned’ is Masculine Plural and it changes to की kee when what’s owned is Feminine. Remember that it changes depending on what’s owned and not on who is ‘doing the owning’! Let me show you some more examples…

नेहा की बेटी nehaa kee betee - Neha’s daughter
So can you see that here we use don’t use का kaa and instead we use की kee because बेटी betee - daughter is a feminine noun!

लड़के की किताब larke kee kitaab - The boy’s book
So what’s happened here? Well again we use की kee because किताब kitaab - book is feminine. Also something else to note is that because we are using a postposition the word लड़का larkaa - boy goes into the Oblique case and becomes लड़के larke, as we learnt in. Do you understand? This can be a little confusing so if you’re lost then please leave me a comment below!
In fact you can even use का kaa more than once in a single sentence!

आदमी के बेटे के कुत्ते aadmee ke bete ke kutte - The man’s son’s dogs
Now this example is a little bit confusing so don’t worry too much if you’ve got lost! Ready to look at something even more advance? It’s so easy to turn what we’ve learnt today into fuller and complete sentences. Let me give you a few examples…

लड़की की साड़ी सुन्दर है larkee kee saaree sundar hai - The girl’s Sari is beautiful

राज के कपड़े गंदे हैं raaj ke kapre gande hain - Raj’s clothes are dirty
Don’t worry too much if you can’t understand the last two examples, they are quite complicated! I just wanted to give you an quick look at how का kaa is used in real life sentences!
Hopefully now you know how to correctly use का kaa in Hindi! Don’t forget to ask me any questions if you have them in a comment just below.

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