# Hindi, Urdu: milna



## amiramir

Hi all,

What is the difference between:

Main usse mila hun

and

Mujhe usse mila hai. 

Would both mean "I have met him"? Does one imply that it was a per chance meeting while the other implies meeting for the first time?

Can both of the above Hindi sentences be used with "pehli baar?" i.e. Main usse pehli baar mila hun & Mujhe usse pehli baar mila hai ?

Thank you.


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## marrish

Actually the first sentence means '_I have met him/her_' but the second one doesn't. The second one means 'I have got from him/her', without saying what has been got. An equivalent to the first one can be formed like this: _wuh mujh se milaa hai_ or _wuh mujhe milaa hai._


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## amiramir

marrish said:


> Actually the first sentence means '_I have met him/her_' but the second one doesn't. The second one means 'I have got from him/her', without saying what has been got. An equivalent to the first one can be formed like this: _wuh mujh se milaa hai_ or _wuh mujhe milaa hai._



Thank you for your answer. I am consuded, because I often come across constructions as in the second one above, that I think mean 'to meet,' but maybe I am mistaken.

There is a Hindi song called Ek khubsurat ladki mujhe raat ko mili thi -- which I would assume means that the person in question met the beautiful girl at night. Are you saying it should really be: "Main ek khubsurat ladki se raat ko mila tha" instead?

Thanks very much for the clarification.


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## Qureshpor

amiramir said:


> Hi all,
> 
> What is the difference between:
> 
> Main usse mila hun
> 
> and
> 
> Mujhe usse mila hai.
> 
> Would both mean "I have met him"? Does one imply that it was a per chance meeting while the other implies meeting for the first time?
> 
> Can both of the above Hindi sentences be used with "pehli baar?" i.e. Main usse pehli baar mila hun & Mujhe usse pehli baar mila hai ?
> 
> Thank you.


This is how I understand these sentences.

1) I met him/I have met him (I would write "us se") or I met up with him/I have met up with him.

2) usse has met me... or 

I have found usse

(I have to admit the name is a bit unusual)

If you say..

mujhe vuh milaa hai...then

He has met (up with) me

Yes, one can use "pahlii baar" with all three sentences.


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## amiramir

Oh I see, thank you.

So in the song title above, ek khubsurat ladki mujhe raat ko mili thi -- it means the beautiful girl met met, not I met the beautiful woman, correct?

Thanks again


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## marrish

Amiramir, this is the same in my perception. maiN us se milaa, vuh mujh se milii. Another is maiN us ko milaa vuh mujh ko milii which is the same as maiN use milaa vuh mujhe milii.

The first, I met someone, the second and third which is the same, I've found, I've got someone. _laRkii_ NOT ladkii NOT laDkii is basicall a girl but a girl can be of any age, can't she?


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## Stranger_

A very useful thread to me, but I have some questions to Urdu zabaanaane aziiz:



> maiN us se milaa


Why hasn't "ne" been used after "maiN"?

---

Also, could you give some examples on the usage of "milnaa" in the sense of "to get/to find"? I mean I want simple examples from real life, i.e. spoken language, not from poems or prose which are beyond me.


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## marrish

There is no "ne" because there are many verbs which don't require it in the past tense. Not really an answer but it may lead you to check it out for yourself.

_aap ko jawaab mil gayaa hae_? (as to your second point).


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## Stranger_

jii haaN, mujhe javaab mil gayaa hai magar maiN aur misaalen chahtaa huuN please.


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## marrish

mujhe naukarii mil ga'ii (I got a job). mujhe aap kaa xat milaa (I got your letter). us ko waqt par tanxwaah nahiiN milii (He didn't get his salary on time). aHmad ko kal kaa axbaar nahiiN mil rahaa (Ahmad can't find yesterday's newspaper). ishtihaar kaa jawaab mile nah mile mujhe ko'ii farq nahiiN paRe gaa kyoN kih mujhe gaaRii kaa xariidaar mil chukaa hae. (It won't make a difference whether I get an answer to the ad or not as I've already found a buyer of the car).


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## Stranger_

Thank you so much brother.


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## marrish

Most welcome, no problem.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

Sorry for the late observation, but just in order to clarify my understanding of this:
I believe that "not taking _ne_" is not the best way to frame what happens with _milnaa_.

Sentences with _milnaa _seem to adopt an "oblique" sentence pattern, independently of the tense/aspect of the verb.

_ahmad ko apnii beTii nahiiN mil rahii hai_

So, what happens in the perfective with _milnaa_, is actually what happens with all such  "oblique case" sentences, whether they use _milnaa_ or not.

_mujhe buxaar thaa
unheN aap_kaa xat milaa_

The "logical subject" of the above sentences is in oblique case, not in ergative (_maiN_ne_,  _unhoN_ne_), so they were never supposed to take _ne _anyway.


In other words, the oddity of _milnaa _is not so much "not taking _ne_", but "forming sentences with the oblique pattern".


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## amiramir

I think that's only partially true. 

Because there is a primary meaning of milnaa, which is to meet, rather than to get. In the case of 'to meet'-- sentences aren't formed by an "oblique pattern." In such cases they are formed by an nominative-absolutive pattern aka "not taking ne."

For 'to get," then I agree with you.


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## aevynn

Perhaps this has already become clear to you in the intervening 9 years, as this is sort of related to what you've just said above, but... milnaa does carry meanings related to encounters of all sorts, but I think the semantics of the "X Y se milaa" construction differ somewhat from those of "X ko Y milaa" (or "Y X ko milaa"[^1]), in that the former implies some reciprocity between X and Y (and might thus closer to "X met Y" or "X and Y met") while the latter is more neutral on this front (and might thus be closer to "X got/found/encountered Y.") For example, it is only the latter construction that can be used when Y is inanimate (eg, "mujhe chaabii nahiiN mil rahii!"). When X and Y are both human beings, I guess these distinctions are somewhere between small and insignificant, but it's still perceivable to me and my very nitpicky point is just that...


amiramir said:


> So in the song title above, ek khubsurat ladki mujhe raat ko mili thi -- it means the beautiful girl met met, not I met the beautiful woman, correct?


I feel that the meaning of this line would be better conveyed through a translation like "I encountered a beautiful girl."

---
Footnote:
[^1]: I think the "X ko Y milaa" is probably a more neutral word-order than "Y X ko milaa." This is the word order that appears in all of the examples in posts #8, #10, and the first example of #13. That this is the neutral word-order is in keeping with the discussion about "forming sentences with the oblique pattern" above (which I think most UH linguists would probably call "dative subject constructions" or just "dative constructions").


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