Yes, No and Questions in Hindi!

You won’t get very far with a conversation in Hindi if you don’t know how to how to say the words ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or if you don’t know how to ask simple questions, so today that’s what we are going to cover!
So are you ready to get straight into it? अच्छा acchaa - great!

Yes in Hindi is हाँ haan.

And no is… नहीं naheen.
So now, the next thing we need to learn is how to ask a question in Hindi. Today we’re just going to focus on simple questions - which is where we just turn a statement into a question. Let me show you…

You should be able to say ‘This is a house’ in Hindi. Can you figure it out? That’s right we say यह घर है yeh ghar hai - This is a house.
Now, to turn this statement into a question all we do is put the word क्या kyaa at the start! So all we say is क्या यह घर है? kyaa yeh ghar hai? - Is this a house? Can you see? It’s really easy! So how would we reply to this questions? Of course, we’d say हाँ haan - Yes!

Ready for another example? क्या यह बिल्ली है? kyaa yeh billee hai? What does this question mean? That’s right, we’re asking ‘Is this a cat?’. Remember यह बिल्ली है yeh billee hai - means ‘This is a cat’ so adding क्या kyaa to the start changes it to ‘Is this a cat?’. Easy!
So can you answer this question? Easy! We can just say नहीं naheen - no.
Or if you want to answer is a full sentence you could say नहीं, यह बिल्ली नहीं है, उल्लू है naheen, yeh billee naheen hai, ulloo hai - No, this is not a cat, it’s a Owl. Phew that was a bit of a mouthful!
We also have the word जी jee in Hindi, it doesn’t really translate very well into English, but all you need to know is that you put जी jee before either हाँ haan - yes or नहीं naheen - no to show more respect to the person you are talking to. For example suppose your work boss asked you…

क्या यह किताब तुम्हारी है? kyaa yeh kitaab tumhaaree hai? - Is this book yours?
The word तुम्हारी tumhaaree means Your or Yours
And if it was your book you would reply with जी हाँ jee haan - Yes (With respect). See, it’s easy isn’t it!
Practice writing your own simple little questions and reply to them! Feel free to leave a comment below if you want any help! Be sure to practice the words हाँ haan - Yes and नहीं naheen - No, because you’ll be needing them a lot!