# Hindi: English words which have no substitute



## Akhri

Hey,

We all know that English has had a great influence on Hindi vocabulary-wise. This becomes obvious when we hear youth talk in Hindi or rather Hinglish.  

Could you think of any English words used in Hindi, possibly due to modernisation, for which there simply is no Hindi equivalent, or it would sound odd to not use the English word? I'm hoping to get some answers besides the obvious ones such as telephone/cellphone, computer, etc. 

Thanks!


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## marrish

Some very basic words in English: parents, siblings, nurse, don't have a ready one-word equivalent (Hindi speakers shall certainly correct me and expand on this).


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## eskandar

Other general English family words have no direct Hindi equivalent, at least as far as I'm aware, like "cousin" or "uncle", " aunt ", etc. These are general words for which a more specific Hindi word must be used (eg. for "uncle" you must use a different word depending on whether it is paternal or maternal, etc).

For words where it would sound odd not to use the English word, I would include "thank you" and "sorry" (perhaps others) here which are commonly used in Hindi. Of course there are equivalents, but often their tone is much stronger, leading people to prefer "thank you" for a simple, casual situation where "dhanyavad" or "shukriya" would be too heavy or formal. This is my outsider, learner's perspective; perhaps native speakers would disagree.


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## mundiya

^ I think you both explained it well.

For nurse, there are single-word equivalents, but they are gender specific, and would also depend on the type of nurse that is meant.


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## HZKhan

eskandar said:


> "shukriya" would be too heavy or formal...



I politely differ. 'Shukriya' never sounds heavy or formal to me in the least.


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## eskandar

The thread title just says "Hindi" so I was trying to speak to that. The Hindi-speaking Indians I know seem to rarely say either 'dhanyavaad' or 'shukriya' in casual settings, preferring the English 'thank you' for simple things when among friends/family. But I'd like to hear the native Hindi-speakers' opinions, too.


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## Saimdusan

As far as Urdu-speakers in Western Punjab are concerned, I've also noticed that they don't say _shukriyah _very often at all, but neither do they say _thank you _all that much. Definitely much less than native English-speakers. 

That said, your general observation is correct I'd say, in that if they were to say _thank you_ or _please _they'd say it in situations where they'd be very unlikely to say _shukriyah_, and I don't even know if there is a literal Urdu translation of _please _(I've seen _please_ translated to Hindi as _kripiya_, a word I don't think I've ever atually heard used). Urdu and generally South Asian ettiquete seems to be based on other things that are absent in English and among English-speakers - some more obvious examples could be the _tu/tum/aap_ distinction and the use of the _ji _particle.

I'd also say that s_orry_ is more common than _thank you _or _please, _but don't quote me on that.


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## eskandar

^ I totally agree. I think in a great many situations where one would say 'please' or 'thank you' in English, either nothing is said in Hindi/Urdu, or another way of indicating politeness (rather than a separate word) is used, such as the examples you gave (eg. saying _fulaan kaam kijiye / kijiyegaa_ for 'please do [whatever]'). That being said, we did recently have a thread on words for 'please' in Urdu. (While others might disagree, personally I don't use any of the phrases from that thread in ordinary speech, only in very formal or scholarly settings). As for _kripaya_ I have never heard a real human say it, but I hear it frequently in the kind of shuddh Hindi one hears in official announcements in India, such as at the airport.


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## marrish

Returning to the topic and the languages in question I think "lunch" doesn't have a word for it in Hindi.


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## Saimdusan

_Douphair ka khana_​? I always thought that was general Hindustani, not specific to Urdu.


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## marrish

Perhaps. I don't know


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## Kahaani

I believe that to miss does not have a literal equivalent in Hindi. I've always thought _yaad aanaa _does not convey exactly the same message. To have doesn't have an exact translation either, to denote posession there's only some ambiguous construction. But I think that's besides the point.


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## mundiya

eskandar said:


> ^ I totally agree. I think in a great many situations where one would say 'please' or 'thank you' in English, either nothing is said in Hindi/Urdu, or another way of indicating politeness (rather than a separate word) is used, such as the examples you gave (eg. saying _fulaan kaam kijiye / kijiyegaa_ for 'please do [whatever]'). That being said, we did recently have a thread on words for 'please' in Urdu. (While others might disagree, personally I don't use any of the phrases from that thread in ordinary speech, only in very formal or scholarly settings). As for _kripaya_ I have never heard a real human say it, but I hear it frequently in the kind of shuddh Hindi one hears in official announcements in India, such as at the airport.



That's how many people feel about saaf Urdu.

Re "kripayaa": It's common in writing.  In speech, it's used in formal language, but not that much in everyday usage, at least not in the larger cities.  But it doesn't sound like a "monstrosity" to most Hindi speakers.

Re "lunch": Of course "dopahar kaa khaanaa" is commonly used.  It's a basic phrase.  I'm not sure why there was a doubt about that.


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## Qureshpor

mundiya said:


> That's how many people feel about saaf Urdu.[...]


My impression was this thread is solely concerned with Hindi and eskandar SaaHib, as far as I can see is responding with Hindi in mind. So to bring in "saaf Urdu" in to the discussion is unnecessary and off-topic.


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## eskandar

eskandar said:


> As for _kripaya_ I have never heard a real human say it, but I hear it frequently in the kind of shuddh Hindi one hears in official announcements in India, such as at the airport.





mundiya said:


> That's how many people feel about saaf Urdu.
> 
> Re "kripayaa": It's common in writing.  In speech, it's used in formal language, but not that much in everyday usage, at least not in the larger cities.  But it doesn't sound like a "monstrosity" to most Hindi speakers.


Just to clarify, I wasn't talking about "shuddh Hindi" overall but the specific variety one encounters in the airport. It's just my opinion, of course, but there is something weird and discordant to me about hearing several "shuddh" words (like _kripayaa_, _dhanyavaad_, and more complicated ones I can't recall) together in the same sentence with Persian and Arabic words like _saamaan _and _iste'maal_. Perhaps the effect is totally different for the native Hindi speaker for whom such words do not seem "Persian" or "Arabic" but are just ordinary Hindi words. To my ears it would be less jarring if they use _only _Sanskritic/Prakritic vocabulary (avoiding Persian/Arabic words altogether), or else phrased the announcements in ordinary _bol-chaal ki zabaan_ without using words like _kripayaa_. But again that's just a matter of taste, and this is all a bit off topic anyway.


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## HZKhan

I am not a native Hindi speaker, and I've never been around a place where Hindi is spoken, but for me, there is nothing Frankenstein or monstrous about the word 'kripayaa', or in fact about the whole 'shuddh Hindi'. And as mundiya mentioned above, the word 'kripayaa' is quite a commonly used word in Hindi. 

 I think, most of our perception about the polished literary Hindi's 'monstrosity' stems from this fact that we are not  proficient enough in literary Hindi or more exposed to it. I can speak from my personal experience that when some years ago I was utterly ignorant of literary Hindi, I used to think of it as a barbaric tongue, but the more I got the knack of it and the more I studied Hindi literature, the more I started to admire its unique sophistication. 

And as far as the Sanskritic element in Hindi is concerned, what is so wrong about it? As an Urdu speaker, when I can cherish the highly elegant and polished _Urdu e Mu3alla_, which Ghalib called 'rashk e faarsi', then why can't a Hindi speaker do the same thing with regard to his ornate literary Hindi? And when we Urdu speakers continually, and with great and justifiable pride, employ the ubiquitous Perso-Arabic element in Urdu lexicon, and when our neologisms are mostly inspired by the Persian and the Arabic languages, then why should we critcize the Sanskrit loans in Hindi? Sanskrit is also a classic literary language in which many great works have been produced. So if most topnotch Hindi literati identified with Sanskrit and felt at home with it, it was but normal that they would consciously or uncosciously employ Sanskritic vocabulary and phraseology in their literary Hindi. What is so 'monstrous' about it? The best classical English authors have also freely made use of the Greco-Roman languages and literatures, but I don't see anyone criticizing them. 

It's off-topic, but I felt the urge to express my thoughts about the matter.


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## eskandar

Janaab-e-vaalaa, did you happen to see my above clarification (post #15)? In it I indicated that my comments were not about shuddh Hindi or words like _kripayaa_ in general, but about the mixing of 'shuddh Hindi' and Perso-Arabic vocabulary together. As I said, it sounds dissonant to my ears - I would find it less jarring if they used purely 'shuddh Hindi' without the Persian or Arabic words in fact. Similarly I wonder how an Urdu sentence with such Sanskritic words would sound to you, for example _moHtaram Haaziriin-e-meHfil se guzaarish hai keh kripayaa fi'l-faur duurbiin ke dwaara aasmaan kii Taraf dekheN taa-keh ek Hasiin ksudragrah mulaaHaza farmaa'eN! _? To me, it feels like those Sanskritic words are out of place amidst all the Persian and Arabic, which is the same feeling produced on me by the semi-shuddh Hindi in the Indian airports: the Persian and Arabic words feel out of place there. (For you and anyone else who reads Persian, this sentiment as regards Persian and Arabic is expressed in a clever poem by Muhammad-Taqi Bahar).

Keep in mind that I never used the word 'monstrous' myself. I have no problem with 'shuddh Hindi' in and of itself and, like you, have great admiration for Sanskrit. However, you also made an important point about how our perception of literary Hindi is affected by our knowledge (or lack thereof) of it. I have to admit it's very true in my case as well. I don't really know Hindi per se, only some Urdu and 'Hindustani'. That's something I'm slowly beginning to rectify. Anyway I apologize to anyone I may have offended with my 'Frankenstein' comment, it was a poor choice of words.


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## HZKhan

Eskender e giraami, only my first paraghraph was directed at you. For the rest of them, I was talking generally and I had those Urdu and English speakers in my mind who normally criticize literary Hindi for its Sanskritic elements, while forgetting that their own literary languages contain a very large chunk of Perso-Arabic and Greco-Roman vocabulary, respectively.



eskandar said:


> Similarly I wonder how an Urdu sentence with such Sanskritic words would sound to you, for example _moHtaram Haziriin-e-meHfil se guzaarish hai keh kripayaa fi'l-faur duurbiin ke dwaara aasmaan kii Taraf dekheN taa-keh ek Hasiin ksudragrah mulaaHaza farmaa'eN! _? To me, it feels like those Sanskritic words are out of place amidst all the Persian and Arabic, which is the same feeling produced on me by the semi-shuddh Hindi in the Indian airports: the Persian and Arabic words feel out of place there.



I agree, the sentence would sound ridiculous and out of place.



eskandar said:


> For you and anyone else who reads Persian, this sentiment as regards Persian and Arabic is expressed in a clever poem by Muhammad-Taqi Bahar



Thanks for the poem. It reminded me of Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh's short story _Farsi Shakar Ast_.

And don't worry, no offence was taken on my part.


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## Qureshpor

^ esdkandar SaaHib, going by the theme of this thread, there are times when a language does not have words in its repertoire and for that reason it borrows those words from another. I am not of course suggesting that there is no word for "istemaal" and "saamaan" in Sanskrit. Here a possible reason for their retention could be that the Hindi speaking public are comfortable with using these words. If these and others of its ilk were to be expunged, then only the Sanskrit knowing people would be able to make head or tail of the announcement in particular and the language in general.


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## HZKhan

Qureshpor said:


> I am not of course suggesting that there is no word for "istemaal" and "saamaan" in Sanskrit. Here a possible reason for their retention could be that the Hindi speaking public are comfortable with using these words.



Their hindi counterparts _prayog _and _saamagrii _are commonly used on Nat Geo Hindi, so I assume most Hindi speakers will also be comfortably aware of them.

But let's move back to what the thread was originally about.


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## desi4life

eskandar said:


> Similarly I wonder how an Urdu sentence with such Sanskritic words would sound to you, for example _moHtaram Haziriin-e-meHfil se guzaarish hai keh kripayaa fi'l-faur duurbiin ke dwaara aasmaan kii Taraf dekheN taa-keh ek Hasiin ksudragrah mulaaHaza farmaa'eN! _? To me, it feels like those Sanskritic words are out of place amidst all the Persian and Arabic, which is the same feeling produced on me by the semi-shuddh Hindi in the Indian airports: the Persian and Arabic words feel out of place there.



It depends on the currency of a word.  If Sanskrit words such as _nadii _and _sukh _were used amidst all of the Perso-Arabic elements in saaf Urdu, it probably wouldn't sound odd to most Urdu speakers.  Similarly, the use of Persian and Arabic words like _saamaan _and _istemaal _wouldn't sound odd to Hindi speakers.


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## Qureshpor

Pakistani Khan said:


> [...]I think, most of our perception about the polished literary Hindi's 'monstrosity' stems from this fact that we are not  proficient enough in literary Hindi or more exposed to it. I can speak from my personal experience that when some years ago I was utterly ignorant of literary Hindi, I used to think of it as a barbaric tongue, but the more I got the knack of it and the more I studied Hindi literature, the more I started to admire its unique sophistication.


This is wonderful news, Pakistani Khan SaaHib. At the very least we can now expect some thing from Hindi literature to gauge whether a Hindi construction being written in the pages of this forum is "praamaaNik" and "shaaleen".



Pakistani Khan said:


> Their hindi counterparts _prayog _and _saamagrii _are commonly used on Nat Geo Hindi, so I assume most Hindi speakers will also be comfortably aware of them.But let's move back to what the thread was originally about.


I don't necessarily agree with this but yes, let's move on.


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## HZKhan

Qureshpor said:


> This is wonderful news, Pakistani Khan SaaHib. At the very least we can now expect some thing from Hindi literature to gauge whether a Hindi construction being written in the pages of this forum is "praamaaNik" and "shaaleen".



I'm afraid that I just have an intermediate and passive knowledge of literary Hindi, and my study has been confined to the prose works, as the classical poetic Hindi uses a much more ornate and Sanskritic language that I have not yet been able to grasp. Therefore, your excpectation is overestimated.


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## Qureshpor

Saimdusan said:


> As far as Urdu-speakers in Western Punjab are concerned, I've also noticed that they don't say _shukriyah _very often at all, but neither do they say _thank you _all that much. [..]


यदि वे शुक्रिया अथवा थैंक यू नहीं कह्ते तो क्या कह्ते हैं?


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## littlepond

marrish said:


> Some very basic words in English: parents, siblings, nurse, don't have a ready one-word equivalent (Hindi speakers shall certainly correct me and expand on this).



Just as the correction requested, siblings are not that much used in their English forms in Hindi. Also, as far as parents are concerned, Hindi words are also very common. "Nurse", yes, exists primarily (not uniquely though) in its English form.

Meanwhile, food items like "coffee" or "noodles" and things like "suitcase"/"attaichee" (from French "*attaché case*")/"briefcase" which came to be known in India from the West exist of course uniquely in their English forms.

A seemingly surprising word used a lot in its English wording is "love" (and the phrase "I love you", since there is not really a phrase in Hindi and Urdu which can map this English phrase in its simplicity and variability of depth at the same time).


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## littlepond

marrish said:


> Returning to the topic and the languages in question I think "lunch" doesn't have a word for it in Hindi.



In India, we rarely differentiate between "lunch" and "dinner": both are "bhojan" in Hindi, "ooTaa" in Kannada, etc. And "bhojan" is used.


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## HZKhan

littlepond said:


> A seemingly surprising word used a lot in its English wording is "love" (and the phrase "I love you", since there is not really a phrase in Hindi and Urdu which can map this English phrase in its simplicity and variability of depth at the same time).



'maiN tum se pyaar karta huuN' seems compeletely equivalent to me. Yes, one could argue that the Hindi phrase is more verbose than the english one, but it conveys the same sense and depth.


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## littlepond

^ Verbosity is everything.


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## HZKhan

But verbosity is no valid reason to say that a given hindi word or phrase is not an equivalent substitute.


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## mundiya

Pakistani Khan said:


> But verbosity is no valid reason to say that a given hindi word or phrase is not an equivalent substitute.



I agree.


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## eskandar

I think another English phrase without an exact Hindi equivalent is "excuse me" (when getting someone's attention).


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## HZKhan

eskandar said:


> I think another English phrase without an exact Hindi equivalent is "excuse me" (when getting someone's attention).



This 'excuse me' can be easily substituted with _jaraa suniye_.


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## desi4life

littlepond said:


> In India, we rarely differentiate between  "lunch" and "dinner": both are "bhojan" in Hindi, "ooTaa" in Kannada,  etc. And "bhojan" is used.



You would need to specify "dopahar kaa khaanaa/bhojan" if simply saying "khaanaa/bhojan" is ambiguous.



Pakistani Khan said:


> This 'excuse me' can be easily substituted with _jaraa suniye_.



More often than not, in educated speech it's _zaraa suniye_.


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## marrish

"baat suniye" should be also fine. In Urdu 'mu3aaf kiijiye  gaa" is also a manner of addressing people (so somewhat maaf kiijiye  or to this extent should be valid for Hindi too) but I am not sure if it is proper Urdu.


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## marrish

littlepond said:


> Just as the correction requested, siblings are not that much used in their English forms in Hindi. Also, as far as parents are concerned, Hindi words are also very common. "Nurse", yes, exists primarily (not uniquely though) in its English form.
> 
> Meanwhile, food items like "coffee" or "noodles" and things like "suitcase"/"attaichee" (from French "*attaché case*")/"briefcase" which came to be known in India from the West exist of course uniquely in their English forms.
> 
> A seemingly surprising word used a lot in its English wording is "love" (and the phrase "I love you", since there is not really a phrase in Hindi and Urdu which can map this English phrase in its simplicity and variability of depth at the same time).


About siblings I was meaning a word of English which doesn't have a word in Hindi, I was not taking about those words which are taken wholesale into Hindi (and Urdu too). Could you tell me which word is there for a nurse please? 

For the sake of truthfulness, coffee is (qahvah) in Urdu not because it was the English custom of coffee-drinking and it came from the Arab/Turkish sources. Yes, I don't know any word for 'noodles' but I call them 'pasta'.

"Love" for Hindi speakers is really baffling because not only the English phrases but also something as "Love Jihad" is there. I read about it in an Indian Urdu newspaper a couple of months ago and I had to make a web search to discover what it really read like and what was the meaning. As if 'love' was a profane word but the sachchaa pyaar, ishq, muhabbat etc were of a different level.


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## littlepond

marrish said:


> Could you tell me which word is there for a nurse please?



I've seen and heard some people using "parichaarak" and "parichaarikaa".



marrish said:


> For the sake of truthfulness, coffee is (qahvah) in Urdu not because it was the English custom of coffee-drinking and it came from the Arab/Turkish sources. Yes, I don't know any word for 'noodles' but I call them 'pasta'.



"Pasta" is a different kind of noodles than the kind meant when people say "noodles". As for coffee, I am very much familiar with the word "qahvah", but would you call Nescafe's instant coffee a qahvah? I would call it coffee, and I have always heard Urdu and Hindi speakers calling it coffee, not qahvah.



marrish said:


> "Love" for Hindi speakers is really baffling because not only the English phrases but also something as "Love Jihad" is there. I read about it in an Indian Urdu newspaper a couple of months ago and I had to make a web search to discover what it really read like and what was the meaning. As if 'love' was a profane word but the sachchaa pyaar, ishq, muhabbat etc were of a different level.



The semantics of "love" and other Hindi-Urdu words are indeed a topic in itself, so let's stop here. It is but natural that when there are synonyms for a word, all in common use, different words develop different associations in common usage. "Mohabbat jihad" would indeed sound so strange!


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## littlepond

desi4life said:


> You would need to specify "dopahar kaa khaanaa/bhojan" if simply saying "khaanaa/bhojan" is ambiguous.



I don't find it ambiguous; it would be evident from the time of the day what is meant. After all, in Karnataka, people do use "ooTaa", not the English words, so it is clear that no one is getting confused. Same for Hindi "bhojan".


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## Qureshpor

Pakistani Khan said:


> I'm afraid that I just have an intermediate and passive knowledge of literary Hindi, and my study has been confined to the prose works, as the classical poetic Hindi uses a much more ornate and Sanskritic language that I have not yet been able to grasp. Therefore, your expectation is overestimated.


Well, examples from quality Hindi prose to illustrate a language issue would be most welcome. You know good prose can be sheer poetry!


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## gagun

eskandar said:


> ^ I totally agree. I think in a great many situations where one would say 'please' or 'thank you' in English, either nothing is said in Hindi/Urdu, or another way of indicating politeness (rather than a separate word) is used, such as the examples you gave (eg. saying _fulaan kaam kijiye / kijiyegaa_ for 'please do [whatever]'). That being said, we did recently have a thread on words for 'please' in Urdu. (While others might disagree, personally I don't use any of the phrases from that thread in ordinary speech, only in very formal or scholarly settings). As for _kripaya_ I have never heard a real human say it, but I hear it frequently in the kind of shuddh Hindi one hears in official announcements in India, such as at the airport.



you can use zaraa or thodaa inplace of please


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## gagun

Pakistani Khan said:


> I politely differ. 'Shukriya' never sounds heavy or formal to me in the least.



I also agree that 'shukriyah' is not heavy formal to me and thread is about hindi but in southern india shukriyah is common than dhanyavaad.


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## Qureshpor

^ thoRaa andar aa'iye is not equal to "Please come in", Neither is "zaraa sochiye to" the same as "Please think about it"!


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## gagun

Qureshpor said:


> ^ thoRaa andar aa'iye is not equal to "Please come in", Neither is "zaraa sochiye to" the same as "Please think about it"!



app kaa bhot shukriya qp saahib here zaraa and thodaa sound like "just" and "little" only and there are other sentences which come in my mind are 'zaraa gaadi halluu/halka chalaiyegaa' 'zaraa kunjee DhunDo nah' etc


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## desi4life

littlepond said:


> I don't find it ambiguous; it would be evident from the time of the day what is meant. After all, in Karnataka, people do use "ooTaa", not the English words, so it is clear that no one is getting confused. Same for Hindi "bhojan".



If a husband wants to ask his wife in the morning what she will be making for lunch (or the other way around if you prefer), he would need to specify "dopahar", otherwise it would be unclear which meal of the day he was referring to.  If the context is clear about which meal is being discussed, then simply "bhojan" would suffice.


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## eskandar

Pakistani Khan said:


> This 'excuse me' can be easily substituted with _jaraa suniye_.


Good point. This was one of the first phrases I learned (from a Pimsleur tape, I think) when I started learning Hindi/Urdu, I don't know why I forgot about it. It does seem to convey the exact same thing as "excuse me", and yet I almost never hear anyone use it. I hear "excuse me" very often from Indian Hindi and Urdu speakers, including those who don't seem to know English.


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## Saimdusan

Qureshpor said:


> यदि वे शुक्रिया अथवा थैंक यू नहीं कह्ते तो क्या कह्ते हैं?



कुछ भी नहीं.  दक्षिणी एशन आदाब पश्चिमी आदाब से मुख़्तलिफ़ होता है.

मिसल के लिये, मैं यूरोपी और ऑस्ट्रेलियान रेस्टोरेंटों में हमेशा thank you/hvala/gràcies/वग़ैरा कहता हूँ जब वेटर खाना रख देते हैं. मार्ग पुछ के मैं thank you भी कहता हूूँ, पर पाकिसतानी लोग वह अक्सर नहीं करते.

शायद मेरा परवार बस असभ्य है.


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## littlepond

Words of daily use which have no real equivalents in older times: like "chair", "notebook", or "pencil" are used mostly or always in their English forms.


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## littlepond

desi4life said:


> If a husband wants to ask his wife in the morning what she will be making for lunch (or the other way around if you prefer), he would need to specify "dopahar", otherwise it would be unclear which meal of the day he was referring to.



I think it would be clear between the husband and wife, which is all what matters. If one were to still specify, then one would rather say something like "dopahar *(ko) *khaane *meiN *tum kyaa banaa rahii/rahe ho?"

"Dopahar *kaa *khaanaa/bhojan" is an unnatural construction and neither is never used nor would be ever used in any natural conversation in Hindi, regardless of whether "dopahar" needs to be specified or not.


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## eskandar

littlepond said:


> Words of daily use which have no real equivalents in older times: like "chair", ... are used mostly or always in their English forms.


Isn't _kursii_ also used in colloquial Hindi?


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## littlepond

^ Indeed, it is used (though less common than "chair" in my experience). An oversight from me! Thanks for pointing that out!


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## desi4life

littlepond said:


> "Dopahar *kaa *khaanaa/bhojan" is an unnatural construction and neither is never used nor would be ever used in any natural conversation in Hindi, regardless of whether "dopahar" needs to be specified or not.



I respect your views, but another Hindi speaker who posted on this thread would disagree with you and so would the Hindi scholar Hardev Bahri.  His dictionary only lists the most common words and phrases.  http://dsalsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.0:4926.bahri Google gives more than 19,000 hits, and Google Books more than 6000 hits, for "दोपहर का खाना".


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## bSky

I think in Hindi, "Wah Bhai" conveys "thank you" better...though not literally


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## littlepond

^ I cannot think of a single situation where "waah bhai" can convey "thank you"!


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