# Hindi, Urdu:  jaisaa aadmii aaj huuN



## MonsieurGonzalito

Friends, 

In an interview (in Hindi) given by the actor Pankaj Tripathi, he says that he aspires to improve as a person, rather than as an actor. 
The way he expresses that idea is as follows:

_merii laRaaii achchhaa ekTar banne se zyaada(h) achchhaa insaan banne kii hai
*maiN jaisaa aadmii aaj huuN, us_se achchhaa kal ban jaauN*_

The bolded part, I assume, means:  "that I become a better man tomorrow than what I am today" 
Or, more less idiomatically and more literally:  "that such a man I am today, tomorrow shall I became better (than)".

My question is:  Is that the most straighforward way that a native speaker would use, to express the idea in bold type?
Or the actor speaks that way deliberately, in order to first focus on who he is today, then shifting to tomorrow? 

Thanks in advance for any suggestion


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> _merii laRaaii achchhaa ekTar banne se zyaada(h) achchhaa insaan banne kii hai
> *maiN jaisaa aadmii aaj huuN, us_se achchhaa kal ban jaauN*_
> 
> The bolded part, I assume, means:  "that I become a better man tomorrow than what I am today"
> Or, more less idiomatically and more literally:  "that such a man I am today, tomorrow shall I became better (than)".



Yes, that's the meaning.


MonsieurGonzalito said:


> My question is:  Is that the most straighforward way that a native speaker would use, to express the idea in bold type?



It's a very natural, straightforward way to express this wish.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

Could I have not used a correlative expression, and placed de comparative "se" more freely, like:

_ki  main vo admii se aaj huuN, behtar kal jaauN _ ?
or
_ki  main vo admii aaj huuN se, behtar kal jaauN _ ?


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Could I have not used a correlative expression, and placed de comparative "se" more freely, like:
> 
> _ki  main vo admii se aaj huuN, behtar kal jaauN _ ?
> or
> _ki  main vo admii aaj huuN se, behtar kal jaauN _ ?



The above two sentences are completely meaningless (and not just because of "se": nothing about them makes any sense)!


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## aevynn

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Could I have not used a correlative expression, and placed de comparative "se" more freely, like:
> 
> _ki main vo admii se aaj huuN, behtar kal jaauN _ ?
> or
> _ki main vo admii aaj huuN se, behtar kal jaauN _ ?


I agree with @littlepond jii, these sentences are basically unintelligible "word soups." This is actually quite surprising to me: I can't remember ever having seen you propose sentences like these...! I'm having trouble pinpointing what confusion(s) might be underlying this, but maybe I can say this:

If your intention was just to avoid a correlative and use a relative clause of another type, I guess you could have restructured the sentence to use an extraposed relative _maiN kal us aadmii se achchhaa ban jaa'uuN jo maiN aaj huuN _or a non-extraposed relative _maiN kal us aadmii se, jo maiN aaj huuN, achchhaa ban jaa'uuN_. These are maybe grammatical, but they sound much less natural than the original sentence in the OP. Correlatives are a very natural part of HU syntax and I don't know that it makes sense to try to avoid them.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

aevynn said:


> I'm having trouble pinpointing what confusion(s) might be underlying this, but maybe I can say this:


Let me try again ...

1. _maiN us admii se achhaa ho jaauN_
2. _maiN us admii se, kal achhaa ho jaauN => _adding time on the main clause
_3. maiN us admii [jo aaj huuN] se, kal achhaa ho jaauN => _adding a relative clause, also with time indication


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Let me try again ...
> 
> 1. _maiN us admii se achhaa ho jaauN_
> 2. _maiN us admii se, kal achhaa ho jaauN => _adding time on the main clause
> _3. maiN us admii [jo aaj huuN] se, kal achhaa ho jaauN => _adding a relative clause, also with time indication



While sentence 3. does not make any sense, note that sentences 1. and 2. are not meaning what you had in OP. Rather, 1. and 2. are saying that a person is wishing that he becomes better than some other man (rather than him/herself).

In addition, the sentences seem to have left something unsaid. A complete sentence would be something like "maiN us aadmii se achchha ban jaauuN": note that one would use "ban jaauuN" rather than "ho jaauN." Sentence 2. should not have any comma anywhere.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

Thank you. I am still trying to pinpoint what is so wrong as to "not making any sense" in attempt #3
Is it that one cannot apply a "se" comparison to something already modified by a relative clause?

_maiN us admii [jo maiN aaj huuN]  se ...
maiN us admii se [jo maiN aaj huuN]  ..._

my aim was for the se to apply to the whole construction, that is, to the _admii _plus the _jo _clause.


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## littlepond

The issue is more about the clause positions rather than "se." A proper sentence would be something like "jo aadmii maiN aaj hooN, kal maiN us se baihtar ban_naa chaahoNgaa."


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## MonsieurGonzalito

No way around a correlative construction! 😄


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## aevynn

I agree with @littlepond jii that sentence 3 of #6 is ungrammatical, and that a correlative really seems like the best way to express this thought. To add a couple more points:


MonsieurGonzalito said:


> maiN us admii [jo maiN aaj huuN] se ...
> maiN us admii se [jo maiN aaj huuN] ...


The postposition can't be separated from the noun it heads, as you've done in the first phrase above. The second phrase is at least parse-able to me -- it sounds _grammatical,_ I guess (cf. #5) -- but even then the resulting sentence just doesn't sound as natural and fluent as the correlative constructions in the OP or in #9. Probably part of the reason for this unnaturality is that this construction is trying to "interrupt the matrix clause with the relative clause" in English-like fashion, which is not that common in colloquial UH, as we discussed here: 


aevynn said:


> Now it is also possible to interrupt the matrix clause with the relative clause, as is done in the English sentence (A):
> (3) wo(h) waqt, jo ham_ne saath bitaayaa hai, kabhii merii yaadoN se miT nahiiN saktaa.
> At least in the colloquial version of the language I'm exposed to, constructions like (1) or (2) would be far more common than (3) in speech.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

aevynn said:


> The postposition can't be separated from the noun it heads,


This is the piece of information I was missing! Thanks. 
So this is not a matter of the comparisson, is a more general feature of HU.

If I wanted to say, for example, the son *of* the man I am today:

I cannot say:
_us admii [jo maiN aaj huuN] kaa beTaa_

and it is unclear an unidiomatic to say:
_us admii kaa beTaa  [jo maiN aaj huuN] _

so I am left only with the internally headed correlative:
_jo admii maiN aaj huuN, us_kaa beTaa ..._


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> so I am left only with the internally headed correlative:
> _jo admii maiN aaj huuN, us_kaa beTaa ..._



Yes. Though a more elegant, natural phrasing would be something like "aaj jo maiN hooN, us kaa beTaa."


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## MonsieurGonzalito

In order to practise this structure (i.e. a noun modified by a relative clause and being part of a postpositional complement and the same time), I input several examples in Spanish on Google translate, and the tool stubbornly subordinates in Hindi the opposite of what I intend to subordinate!
(I know that Google translate sucks, but it worries me that it does it so consistently).

For example, if I want to say: "I work with the hammer that father bought", Google translate gives me:
_maiN us hathauRe se kaam kartaa huuN  jise pitaa_jii ne kal xariidaa thaa_
but I would have expected:
_maiN jis hathauRe  se pitaa_jii  kal xariidaa thaa, us_se kaam kartaa huuN_

Similarly, if I input (speaking as a woman): "I live with the man I love", Google translate gives me:
_maiN us aadmii ke saath rɛhtii huuN,  jise maiN pyaar kartii huuN_
but I would have expected:
_jis aadmii maiN pyaar kartii huuN, us_ke saath  maiN rɛhtii huuN_

Who is right, Google Translate or I?


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## Qureshpor

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Who is right, Google Translate or I?


Google translate.

maiN jis hathauRe *ko* abbaa jaan (vaalid SaaHib) *ne* xariidah hai, us se kaam kartaa huuN.

jis aadamii *se *maiN pyaar kartii huuN, us ke saath maiN rahtii huuN.


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Who is right, Google Translate or I?



Google Translate is right. Among your two sentences, the first one makes no sense at all and the second one, after the addition of "se," is still not a natural way to speak.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

But what Google is saying on the 2nd sentence: 
_maiN us aadmii ke saath rɛhtii huuN, jise maiN pyaar kartii huuN_

wouldn't it be instead: 
_"I live with that man, whom I love"?_


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> But what Google is saying on the 2nd sentence:
> _maiN us aadmii ke saath rɛhtii huuN, jise maiN pyaar kartii huuN_
> 
> wouldn't it be instead:
> _"I live with that man, whom I love"?_



Google's sentence means "I live with the man I love." The "whom" is implied in the English sentence. By the way, in the Google sentence, is it "jise" or "jis se"?


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## MonsieurGonzalito

littlepond said:


> By the way, in the Google sentence, is it "jise" or "jis se"?


_jise_




which would be wrong, going by @Qureshpor jii's example correction.

But now I am confused.
@aevynn jii in #11 pointed out (when speaking about the man comparing himself with a previous self)  that:

_maiN us admii se [jo maiN aaj huuN] _... was "acceptable but unnatural"

So why the internally-headed correlative is recommendable in:

_maiN [jaisaa aadmii aaj huuN], us_se achchhaa kal ban jaauN_

but not recommendable in:

_[jis aadamii se maiN pyaar kartii huuN], us_ke saath maiN rahtii huuN. ?_

Both sentences look structurally very similar to me: we have a noun (coincidentally, _aadmii _in both) that is at the same time subordinated by a postposition, and being modified by a relative clause.


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