को ko - ‘to’

It usually means ‘to’, but unfortunately sometimes it isn’t that simple. Ever since that lesson को ko has been cropping up all over the place, sometimes quite unexpectedly!
Today we’re going to refresh ourselves and have a short ‘whistle-stop’ tour to some of the uses of को ko that we’ve already seen. We’re also going to learn a few new things about it! Are you ready to get going?
The most obvious use of को ko is ‘to’ when giving something to someone, just as we use it in English! For example we might say…

मैं माँ को कपड़ा देता हूँ main maan ko kapraa detaa hoon
- I give the cloth to Mother (Said by a Male)
Can you see here we’ve used माँ को maan ko to mean ‘to Mother’ - because that’s who we are giving it to! See it’s easy, don’t you think? This same use comes up in a bunch of other places though, which to begin with often seems unrelated!
In Hindi when we want to say ‘I like something’ we literally say ‘To me that thing is liked’. So we have to use को ko!

चाहना caahnaa - To Want

caahie - Want / Need Something
In today’s lesson we’re just going to cover one very simple Hindi word. How easy does that sound? The word is (quite unsurprisingly!) चाहिए caahie and it’s used to show that someone ‘wants’ or ‘needs’ something.
 How would we say ‘I like tea’ in Hindi? That’s right, we say…

मुझको चाय पसंद है mujhko caay pasand hai - I like tea.
Postposition को ko to mean ‘to me’. So in this sentence we are literally saying “To me tea is liked (pleasing)”.
Why have I brought this up now? Well saying ‘I want tea’ in Hindi is very similar to saying ‘I like tea’! We actually say…
मुझको चाय चाहिए mujhko caay caahie - I want tea
Literally ‘to me tea is wanted / needed’. Can you see the similarities and differences here? Note first that when using चाहिए caahie we don’t use हूँ hoon, है hai, हैं hain etc.
Think you’ve understood? Ready for another example?

हमको फल चाहिए hamko phal caahie - We want fruit
Can you see how easy this is? There’s nothing difficult here at all! So do you want to see some more examples?

hee - Only

In today’s lesson we’re going to just look at one tiny little Hindi word - I mean how easy does that sound? The word we’re going to study is; ही hee. Have you seen this word before? It comes up all the time so I bet you have. Hopefully by the end of today’s lesson you’ll understand perfectly what it means and how to use it. So are you ready to get going?
Let’s look at an example of ही hee first, we already know how to say “They speak Hindi”, that’s right it’s…

वे हिन्दी बोलते हैं ve hindee bolte hain - They speak Hindi
. Now by just adding the word ही hee into this sentence we can make quite a big difference to its meaning. So let’s see what happens…
वे हिन्दी ही बोलते हैं ve hindee hee bolte hain
- They speak only Hindi
So can you see what’s changed? We’ve added ही hee and this has changed the meaning of the sentence from “They speak Hindi” to “They speak only Hindi”. Are you following? So what exactly does ही hee mean then?

कर kar - After…

In today’s lesson we’re going to learn about an easy, but powerful, verb construction in Hindi. It’s technical name is the conjunctive particle or the absolutive, but don’t let those scary names put you off! Do you think you’re ready to get going? Great! Let’s start with something we already know then; how would we say “I read the newspaper” (read as in past tense).

मैंने अख़बार पढ़ा mainne akhbaar parhaa
- I read the newspaper
Great! So now suppose we wanted to make this sentence a little more interesting and say “after eating I read the newspaper” - how would we do this? Well it’s easier than you might think! All we do is take the verb खाना khaanaa - ‘to eat’ and change it to खाकर khaakar - ‘after eating’, and then wack it into the start of our sentence…
मैंने खाकर अख़बार पढ़ा mainne khaakar akhbaar parhaa
- After eating I read the newspaper
Can you see whats happened? Let’s look at a few more examples to get more used to it….

Where are You From?

Today we’re going to learn how to ask ‘Where are You From?’ in Hindi and of course we’ll learn how to reply! This is yet another great phrase to use when you first meet someone to get to know them! So are you ready to get straight into it? I’ll introduce you to the phrase first and then we’ll learn all about it! The phrase we’re going to use is…

आप कहाँ से हैं? aap kahaan se hain - Where are you from?
Say it again, and again. Practice makes perfect! Now can you recognise any of these words here? Let’s go through them one by one, are you ready?
You should be very familiar with आप aap - you, and हैं hain - are by now, we’ve seen them loads! Now the word कहाँ kahaan means where. Finally then we have से se, this simply means ‘from’. So literally we are saing ‘you where from are’ - or ‘Where are you from?’. This phrase is the same for Males and for Females!
But now of course we’re going to want to reply to this so let’s learn how to do that. It’s a lot easier than you think I assure you! We simply say…

मैं ____ से हूँ main ___ se hoon - I am from ____.
Where you obviously replace the blank with the name of the country you are from! We are literally saying ‘I …. from am’! This phrase is the same for both Males and Females. So are you ready to learn the names of some countries in Hindi? Great! Most country names are very similar to the names we are used to from English, but a few of them (including the most important India!) are different! So here goes…
भारत bhaarat - India
पाकिस्तान paakistaan - Pakistan
अमेरिका amerikaa - America
इंग्लैंड inglaind - England
चीन ceen - China
So for example, say you were from America then you would say…
मैं अमेरिका से हूँ main amerikaa se hoon - I am from America
Or if there was a group of you from India you might say…
हम भारत से हैं ham bhaarat se hain - We are from India
Can you see our phrase has changed slightly in the last example? That’s because we are saying ‘We are from India’ and not ‘I am from India’. Don’t worry if you’re a little confused!
So why not leave a comment below and tell me where you are from and then ask the question for the next person to reply to! If I haven’t covered the name of your country in the lesson then please feel free to ask me in a comment! Be sure to keep practicing each new phrase you learn!

How Old are You?

Today we’re going to learn another great conversational phrase, we’re going to see how to ask the question ‘How old are you?’ and obviously this is no good if we don’t know how to reply so we’ll also see how to reply with ‘I am ____ years old’ in Hindi! So are you ready to get straight into it? I’ll show you it first then take you through what each of the words mean! Here goes…

आपकी उम्र क्या है? aapkee umr kyaa hai
-How Old are You?
This is the same when asking both males and females. Have you got it? Say it out loud. Read it again - आपकी उम्र क्या है? aapkee umr kyaa hai -How old are you? This you can remember it with enough practice?
So what are all these words here? Well let’s go through them!
Firstly we have आपकी aapkee - This means ‘your’ . The next word is उम्र umr - This (perhaps you’ve already guessed!) means ‘age’ and it’s feminine. So this is the reason we have to say आपकी aapkee and not आपका aapkaa

Hopefully you’re not too confused about this!

The next word is कया kya. Can you remember what this means? We’ve seen it a few times already. Remember? That’s right, it means ‘what?’. And then finally we have है hai which again, we’ve seen plently of times, it means ‘is’ .
Have you got it? Can you understand the phrase now? आपकी उम्र कया है? aapkee umr kyaa hai -How old are you? Or, literally ‘Your age what is?’.
Now obviously the next this we want to know is how to reply with ‘I am ___ years old’. So are you ready to learn that? अच्छा acchaa Great! This is where it becaomes different for males and females…
If you are a male you say…

मैं __ साल का हूँ main ___ saal kaa hoon
- I am __ years old (Said my a Male)
And if you are a female you say…

मैं __ साल की हूँ main ___ saal kee hoon
- I am __ years old (Said by a Female)
Can you see the difference? A male uses the word का kaa and a female uses the word की kee! Obviously, you simply replace the gap with your age!
So for example a 10 year old boy would say…

मैं दस साल का हूँ main das saal kaa hoon
- I am ten years old (Said by a Male)
And a twenty year old Woman would say…

मैं बीस साल की हूँ main bees saal kee hoon
-I am twenty years old (Said by a Female)

न na - Isn’t it?

Today we’re going to learn all about just one tiny but powerful Hindi word. The word is न na. Can you say it? न na! Great. This word is very popular and it’s used all the time so it’s very important to know it.
So what does न na mean? Well it’s a little tricky to put into a single English word actually but न na roughly translates as something like ‘isn’t it?’ or, ‘isn’t that so’, ‘right?’, ‘yeah?’, etc. We use न na at the end of sentence if we’re not completely sure about something but you think it’s probably true. It’s a little hard to example so let me just show you some examples and I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it! Are you ready to go then?

आपका नाम रीना है, न? aapkaa naam reenaa hai na?
- You’re name is Reena isn’t it?
Suppose you knew that this person’s name was Reena but you hadn’t actually met them, this would be a good thing to say! Another example is…

संजीव होशियार है, न? sanjeev hoshiyaar hai na?
- Sanjeev is clever, right?
In case you haven’t figured it out the word होशियार hoshiyaar means Clever! So here it’s like we kind of know Sanjeev is clever but we’re not 100% sure of it, so we add न na! Do you understand? Ready to keep going?

नौ बजे है न? nau baje hai na - It’s Nine o’clock yeah?

One thing to notice is the difference between a question starting with क्या kyaa and a sentance ending with न na. They can be quite confusing! Have a look at the two following sentences…

क्या तुम अपने घर पर हो? kyaa tum apne ghar par ho?
- Are you at your house?
तुम अपने घर पर हो, न? tum apne ghar par ho na?
- You are at your house, right?
Can you see the difference between the two above sentences? Let me explain it, in the first sentence we really don’t know if they are home or not, we’re asking ‘Are you at your house?’, we don’t know where they are! But in the second sentence we have some reason to think they might be at home so we are asking ‘You’re at your house right?’. Can you see the small difference? Great!
Be sure to leave me a question below if you’re confused or if you have any questions at all!