The Oblique Form for Nouns

Today we'll cover oblique form for nouns. If you missed the last few lessons, I recommend covering them first since the material is somewhat incremental. Just to summarize, the oblique form of a pronoun, noun, adjective, or verb is the special form that it takes on when followed by a postposition (such as "men", "se", and "par").

Recall that many masculine nouns end in "a" and many feminine nouns end in "i". Let's first talk about masculine singular nouns that end in "a". When followed by a postposition, such nouns replace the "a" suffix with an "e".

• larka = the boy
• larke se = from the boy

Masculine singular nouns that end in some other letter remain unchanged when followed by a postposition:

• ghar = the house
• ghar se = from the house

For feminine singular nouns that end in "i", the oblique form of the noun is the same as its direct form:

• larki = the girl
• larki se = from the girl

Feminine singular nouns that don't end in "i" also remain unchanged when followed by a postposition:

• sarak = the street
• sarak se = from the street

That covers all of the singular cases. Now let's look at the plural cases. Masculine plural nouns that end in "e" replace their "e" suffix with "on" for the oblique form; note that the "n" has a soft, nasal pronunciation.

• larke = the boys
• larkon se = from the boys

Masculine plural nouns that end in any other letter simply add the suffix "on" for the oblique form:

• ghar = the houses
• gharon se = from the houses

Recall that some feminine plural nouns have the suffix "ian". For the oblique form of these nouns, the suffix is replaced with "ion"; the "n" here is also pronounced softly.

• larkian = the girls
• larkion se = from the girls

And lastly, feminine plural nouns that end in "en" have their suffixes replaced with "on" for the oblique form:

• saraken = the streets
• sarakon se = from the streets

Fortunately, the endings are similar enough as not to make you incomprehensible in case you accidentally use the wrong ending, so don't stress about it too much in conversation.

Due to the technical, grammar-heavy nature of this lesson and the last, we'll go back to covering simpler phrases for the next few lessons before diving into oblique adjectives and verbs ... so you can breathe a sigh of relief. Till then, below are a few examples of what we learned.

Examples:

• Main ghar se aa raha hoon = I am coming from the house
• Voh un ke gharon men hain = They are in their houses
• Yeh larkion ko deiye = Give this to the girls
• Jumme ko chutti hai = There is a holiday on Friday

The Oblique Form for Pronouns: Me, You, Him, Her, It, Us, Them

These next few lessons will be focused on the oblique forms of pronouns, nouns, and adjectives; today we'll focus just on oblique pronouns. We'll get to what the term "oblique" means exactly, but I thought I'd just warn you in advance that the next few lessons may get a bit technical.

In English, when we use a preposition with a pronoun, we use the oblique form of the pronoun. For example, instead of saying, "I gave it to he", we would say, "I gave it to him" -- the oblique pronoun "him" is used instead of the pronoun "he". In Urdu, we do the same thing, except that we use oblique pronouns with postpositions instead of prepositions. Let's take a look at an example. As we've already learned, the Urdu word for "I" is "main". It doesn't make sense to say "from I" though; instead we say "from me":

• mujh se = from me

In the example above, "mujh" is an oblique pronoun. All pronouns have an oblique form, some of which are the same as their direct form (such as "aap" and "tum"). Here's a list of oblique pronouns in Urdu:

• mujh = me
• aap = you (formal)
• tum = you (informal)
• tujh = you (very informal)
• is = him/her/it (near)
• us = him/her/it (far)
• in = them (near)
• un = them (far)

Remember, you should only use the forms above when they're followed by a postposition! Otherwise, use the direct form of the pronoun instead.

So far, we only know of three postpositions in Urdu: "men", "par", and "se". The examples below also use "ko", meaning "to", which we'll cover in more detail in a later lesson.

Examples:

• aap ko = to you (formal)
• tum ko = to you (informal)
• tujh ko = to you (very informal)

• is se = from him/her/it (near)
• us se = from him/her/it (far)

• mujh par = on me
• in par = on them (near)
• un par = on them (far)

Vocabulary: Days of the Week

Today I'll tell you how to say the different days of the week in Urdu. Note that in Urdu, all days are considered to be masculine, except for Thursday.

• peer (m) = Monday
• mangal (m) = Tuesday
• budh (m) = Wednesday
• jumiraat (f) = Thursday
• jumma (m) = Friday
• hafta (m) = Saturday
• itvaar (m) = Sunday

To say "on ", we don't use the postposition "par", even though it generally translates to "on". Instead, we use a different postposition "ko":

• peer ko = on Monday
• jumme ko = on Friday
• hafte ko = on Saturday

...and so on. You may notice that in the examples above, the words "jumme" and "hafte" end in an "e" instead of "a" as they do in their direct translations. In Urdu, pronouns, nouns, and adjectives sometimes change their form when followed by a postposition; this is known as the oblique form. We'll cover obliques in our coming lessons.

Prepositions and Postpositions: In, On, and From

In English, words such as "in", "on", and "from" are called prepositions because they come before the word they modify. In Urdu, they're actually postpositions -- that is, they come after the word they modify. Below are the Urdu translations for the aforementioned prepositions:

• men = in
• par = on
• se = from

Note that the "n" in "men" is a soft "n". Occasionally, you'll run into some unintuitive uses of these words:

• ghar par = at home
• kaam par = at work

But in most cases, the translation is straightforward -- see below.

Examples:

• Ham Pakistan men hain = We're in Pakistan
• Iskool men, ham basketball khele = In school, we played basketball
• Khaana mez par hai = Food is on the table
• Mera daftar Bay Street par hai = My office is on Bay Street
• Main Toronto se hoon = I'm from Toronto
• Baink yahan se duur hai = The bank is far from here

How to Use Adjectives

It's time to cover adjectives -- those words that describe nouns. Let's start off with the Urdu word for "good":

• acha = good

In most cases, we put the adjective in front of the noun that it describes:

• acha larka = good boy

But as with English, we can push the adjective to come after the noun in some sentences:

• Yeh acha larka hai = This is a good boy

In Urdu, adjectives that end in "a" have separate forms for masculine, feminine, and plural nouns. As you've already seen above (in the "acha larka" example), such adjectives stay the same when describing masculine objects. When describing feminine objects, however, the ending "a" is replaced with an "i":

• achi larki = good girl

Looks familiar, right? When we learned about masculine and feminine nouns, we saw that nouns that end in "a" are typically masculine and nouns that end in "i" are typically feminine. Taking this idea further, you can probably guess what the masculine plural version of "acha" should look like:

• ache larke = good boys

The feminine plural version of the adjective is the same as the feminine singular version:

• achi larkian = good girls

Not all adjectives have multiple forms though. Adjectives that don't end in "a" have only one form, regardless of the gender and number of objects that it refers to. Take the adjective "mashoor", for example:

• mashoor aadmi = famous man / famous men
• mashoor aurat = famous woman
• mashoor auraten = famous women

We'll build our vocabulary of adjectives in our next lesson, and get some practice using them. See you then!

Plurals

In our previous lesson, we learned that in Urdu, every noun falls into one of four categories. In the first category, we have masculine words that end in "a" such as "larka". Words in the first category are made plural by replacing the ending "a" with an "e". (From here on, the plural of a noun will be denoted by a (p).) For example:

• larka (m) = boy
• larke (mp) = boys
• beta (m) = son
• bete (mp) = sons
  

In the second category are masculine nouns that don't end in "a". The singular and plural versions of these words are the same:

• aadmi (m) = man
• aadmi (mp) = men
• ghar (m) = house
• ghar (mp) = houses

The third category consists of feminine nouns that end in "i". To pluralize these nouns, we add the suffix "an" to the end of the word; note that here, the "n" is pronounced using a soft, nasal sound. Here are some examples:

• larki (f) = girl
• larkian (fp) = girls
• beti (f) = daughter
• betian (fp) = daughters

Finally, the last category consists of feminine nouns that don't end in "i". These nouns are pluralized by adding the suffix "en" to the end of the word; again, the "n" here has a soft pronunciation. For example:

• aurat (f) = woman
• auraten (fp) = women
• sarak (f) = street
• saraken (fp) = streets

And that's all there is to it!

Masculine vs. Feminine Nouns

In Urdu, all nouns are said to be either masculine (which we will denote by an (m)) or feminine (which we will denote by an (f)); we saw this briefly in our lesson about the present habitual tense. Nouns that describe males are masculine, and nouns that describe females are feminine.

• aadmi (m) = man
• aurat (f) = woman
• sahib (m) = gentleman
• sahiba (f) = lady

Nouns that can refer to either males or females often have two forms:

• larka (m) = boy
• larki (f) = girl
• beta (m) = son
• beti (f) = daughter

But sometimes a single word can be used to refer to either a male or a female:

• daaktar = doctor

There's no simple way to determine whether a noun is masculine or feminine. Fortunately, if you choose the wrong gender, people are likely to have no trouble understanding you ... they might even find it cute! But if you do plan on learning gender associations nouns, here's one starting point: nouns that end in an "a" (such as "larka" and "beta") usually refer to masculine objects, and nouns that end in an "i" (such as "larki" and "beti") usually refer to feminine objects. We've already seen some exceptions to the rule ("aadmi", "sahiba"), but you can trust this rule for the most part. Words that end in neither "a" nor "i" may be either masculine or feminine -- the only way to learn these is by practicing.

The gender association of a noun can affect the grammatical structure of a sentence in several ways, all of which we'll gradually cover here. In our lesson tomorrow, we'll relate what we learned here to pluralizing nouns. See you then!

Questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How ... and More!

In this lesson, you'll learn how to ask basic questions in Urdu. The six main questions ("who", "what", "when", "where", "why", and "how") are relatively straightforward to translate:

• kya = what
• kaun = who
• kahan = where
• kab = when
• kyoon = why
• kaise = how

(The "n" in "kyoon" is soft.) When using these words in a sentence, they usually precede the verb. Here are a few examples:

• Yeh kya hai? = What is this?
• Voh aadmi kaun hai? = Who is that man?
• Aap kahan jaate hain? = Where are you going?
• Aap log kab aaye? = When did you people come?
• Tum abhi kyoon chal rahe ho? = Why are you leaving now?
• Tum kaise soye? = How did you sleep?

As with English, in Urdu you can turn a sentence into a question simply by raising the intonation of your voice towards the end of the sentence. Take the following sentence, for example:

• Aap Canadian hain = You are Canadian

If you read this sentence with a rise in intonation towards the end of the sentence, as you would when asking a question in English, you can turn it into a question:

• Aap Canadian hain? = Are you Canadian?

To further emphasize that any such statement is a question, one can simply add the word "kya" ("what") at the start of the sentence:

• Kya aap Canadian hain? = Are you Canadian?

Of course, not all questions that we want to ask fit into the "big six" questions. Here are the Urdu words for a few less common questions:

• kitne = how much / how many
• kitne baje = what time
• kis ka = whose (masculine)
• kis ki = whose (feminine)
• kin ke = whose (plural)

And of course, here are a few examples to give you a better sense of how these words can be used:

• Aap ka kitne bacche hain? = How many children do you have?
• Tum kitne baje jaata hai? = What time are you going?
• Yeh kis ka ghar hai? = Whose house is this?
• Voh kin ke gaari hain? = Whose cars are those?

The Present Habitual Tense

Today we'll learn how to conjugate Urdu verbs in the present habitual tense. This tense refers to phrases such as "I do", "I eat", and so on (as opposed to the present continuous tense: "I am doing", "I am eating", etc.) Urdu verbs in their infinitive form all have the suffix "na". Here are a few examples:

• karna = to do
• peena = to drink
• bataana = to tell

We'll look at some more verbs in our next lesson, but for now, let's focus on the verb "karna" ("to do"). To conjugate a verb in the present habitual tense, first we replace the "na" suffix with the appropriate ending (which depends on whether the subject is masculine or feminine). Then we add the appropriate conjugation of the verb "hona". The example below shows how to conjugate the verb "karna" in the present habitual tense.

Masculine:

• main karta hoon = I do
• aap karte hain = you do
• tum karte ho = you do
• tu karta hai = you do
• yeh/voh karta hai = he/it does
• ham karte hain = we do
• yeh/voh karte hain = they do

Feminine:

• main karti hoon = I do
• aap karti hain = you do
• tum karti ho = you do
• tu karti hai = you do
• yeh/voh karti hai = she/it does
• ham karte hain = we do
• yeh/voh karti hain = they do

You can see that in the masculine case, the suffix "na" is replaced by either "ta" or "te" (depending on the pronoun). In the feminine case, the suffix "na" is always replaced with the ending "ti", except for the pronoun "ham" (which uses the ending "te" instead).

The Verb "Hona" ("To Be")

The Urdu word for "to be" is "hona". Memorizing its conjugation is essential since it's so frequently used, not only by itself, but for conjugating other verbs as well (as we will see in later lessons).

• main hoon = I am
• aap hain = you are
• tum ho = you are
• tu hai = you are
• yeh/voh hai = he/she/it is
• ham hain = we are
• yeh/voh hain = they are

Note that the letter n in "hoon" and "hain" are soft n's -- they're pronounced the way you would pronounce the letter n in the French word, "bon".

To use the verb in conjunction with a noun or adjective, you can insert the noun or adjective in between the pronoun and the verb :

• Tum mera beta ho = You're my son
  
• Voh dur hain = They're late