# Urdu: to be in a (good/strange/complicated) mood



## Centemare

Hello everyone,

How would you convey the idea of being "in a [x] mood"? I would try something with من /  मन  but am not quite sure what the construction would be.

Thank you in advance.


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## Alfaaz

_mood _- موڈ، مزاج

وہ بگڑ گئے ہیں مجھ سے جو مجھے منا رہے تھے 
ابھی ہے *مزاج *برہم ابھی مُسکرا رہے تھے 
یہ ادا نہیں تو کیا ہے چلو جو بھی ہو چکا ہے 
مگر اب مُعاف کر دو

مسرور انور از پاکستانی اردو فلم آس

یہ شان بے نیازی یہ بے رخی کا عالم 
بے بات ہو گیا ہے اُن کا *مزاج *برہم 
اک پل میں ہم نے دیکھے کیا کیا حسیں نظارے 
کچھ لوگ روٹھ کر بھی لگتے ہیں کتنے پیارے

مسرور انور از پاکستانی اردو فلم عندلیب

جب سماں ہو پیارا پیارا 
اور بگڑا ہو *موڈ *تمہارا 
مجھے تم تم! بہت بُرے لگتے ہو

اب تھوک بھی دو یہ غصّہ قربان تمہارے جاؤں 
اک بار اگر تم روٹھو ، میں سَو سَو بار مناؤں 
دل اندر سے میرا تڑپے یوں ہی کہتی ہوں اوپر سے 
مجھے تم تم! بہت برے لگتے ہو

قتیل شفائی از پاکستانی اردو فلم بکھرے موتی​
آج اس نے ہنس کے یوں پوچھا *مزاج*
عمر بھر کے رنج و غم یاد آ گئے

احسان دانش​


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## Alfaaz

A few more examples:

کیسے مزاج ہیں جناب کے؟! 
اس کا مزاج کیسا ہے آج؟
اس کا موڈ ٹھیک نہیں.
اس بات پہ اس کا موڈ خراب ہو/بگڑ گیا
وغیرہ​


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## Centemare

Thank you very much for the examples you gave - most of them point to "میرا / اس کا / آپ کا مزاج ", but would "میں خراب مزاج میں ہوں" be correct ?


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## aevynn

Centemare said:


> would "میں خراب مزاج میں ہوں" be correct ?



This sounds fine to me, at least! Here's a she3r by Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi which uses a "~ mizaaj meN honaa" type construction.

yeh inqilaab to ta3miir ke mizaaj meN hai
giraa'e jaate haiN aivaaN bane-banaae hue

And, FWIW, the following sentence appears in the Hindi translation of Vikram Seth's novel "An Equal Music." It's about a dog named Buzby:

bazbii dauR lagaa detaa hai, aur phir lauTkar achchhe mizaaj meN hansoN par bhauNkne lagtaa hai.


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## Centemare

Thank you! I understand much better now!


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## Alfaaz

Centemare said:
			
		

> Thank you very much for the examples you gave - most of them point to "میرا / اس کا / آپ کا مزاج ", but would "میں خراب مزاج میں ہوں" be correct ?


 Please excuse the late reply. aevynn has already provided a detailed answer, but I would just add that I haven't seen many (literary or non-literary) examples during a brief online search. *It would be interesting to hear other forum members' opinions!

*Some of the search results/websites seem to be direct (machine?) translations of English articles. Among these, there are even sentences like the following:

اگر آپ ـــــــــ کے مزاج میں ہیں، تو...
_If you're in the mood for _________, then..._

In multiple past discussions and threads, some constructions have been labelled as _calques_, while others have been highlighted as being coincidentally the same in two or more languages. In this specific case, would forum members consider such formations to be _calques _or _grammatically correct and acceptable Urdu_?


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## marrish

^ it's not idiomatic Urdu either way.


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## Alfaaz

marrish said:
			
		

> ^ it's not idiomatic Urdu either way.


 Could you please elaborate upon what "it" refers to? میں خراب مزاج میں ہوں and/or  اگر آپ ـــــــــ کے مزاج میں ہیں، تو?

(I was actually thinking of you when writing post #7, since you have always been one of the first ones to highlight calques in this forum!)


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## marrish

Alfaaz said:


> Could you please elaborate upon what "it" refers to? میں خراب مزاج میں ہوں and/or  اگر آپ ـــــــــ کے مزاج میں ہیں، تو?
> 
> (I was actually thinking of you when writing the post above, since you have always been one of the first ones to highlight calques in this forum!)


It i.e. the sample you posted, but it is the same with میں خراب مزاج میں ہوں as well.
(I was expecting this, that's why I haven't procrastinated with responding!)
آپ کے مزاج؟


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## Alfaaz

marrish said:
			
		

> It i.e. the sample you posted,


 How could one express the following without using the English word _mood_? 

_The children were in the mood for some ice cream. -_ بچّے آئس کریم کھانے کے موڈ میں تھے
_He wasn't in the mood for fighting. -_ وہ جھگڑنے کے موڈ میں نہیں تھا



			
				marrish said:
			
		

> but it is the same with میں خراب مزاج میں ہوں as well.


Is there a particular reason for this (only one being idiomatic, while in other cases both might be idiomatic)?

اس کی حالت بری ہے 
وہ بری حالت میں ہے


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## aevynn

Alfaaz said:


> How could one express the following without using the English word _mood_?
> 
> _The children were in the mood for some ice cream. -_ بچّے آئس کریم کھانے کے موڈ میں تھے
> _He wasn't in the mood for fighting. -_ وہ جھگڑنے کے موڈ میں نہیں تھا



You might use _man_ — bachchoN ko aa'is kriim khaane kaa man kar rahaa thaa. Or you could use something like _chaahnaa_ — wuh laRnaa nahiiN chaahtaa thaa.


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## Qureshpor

aevynn said:


> You might use _man_ — bachchoN ko aa'is kriim khaane kaa man kar rahaa thaa. Or you could use something like _chaahnaa_ — wuh laRnaa nahiiN chaahtaa thaa.


aa'iis kriim khaane *ko* bachchoN *kaa* man kar rahaa thaa (?)


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## aevynn

Interesting! Both of these postposition usages with _man karnaa_ sound natural to me [*]. Does the postposition usage from my suggestion in #12 sound awkward to you, @Qureshpor saaHib?

[*]: And maybe _bachchoN kaa aa'is kriim khaane kaa man kar rahaa hai_ is acceptable too.


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## Qureshpor

Alfaaz said:


> How could one express the following without using the English word _mood_?
> 
> _The children were in the mood for some ice cream. -_ بچّے آئس کریم کھانے کے موڈ میں تھے
> _He wasn't in the mood for fighting. -_ وہ جھگڑنے کے موڈ میں نہیں تھا


بچّوں کا آئیس کریم کھانے کو جی چاہ رہا تھا۔

bachchoN kaa aa'iis kriim khaane ko jii chaah rahaa thaa.

بچّوں کا آئیس کریم کھانے کو جی مچل رہا تھا۔

bachchoN kaa aa'iis kriim khaane ko jii machal rahaa thaa.

اُس کی طبیعت جھگڑنے کی طرف مائل نہیں تھی۔

us kii tabii3at jhagRne kii taraf maa'il nahiiN thii.


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## Alfaaz

aevynn said:
			
		

> You might use _man_ — bachchoN ko aa'is kriim khaane kaa man kar rahaa thaa. Or you could use something like _chaahnaa_ — wuh laRnaa nahiiN chaahtaa thaa.





			
				Qureshpor said:
			
		

> بچّوں کا آئیس کریم کھانے کو جی چاہ رہا تھا۔
> 
> bachchoN kaa aa'iis kriim khaane ko jii chaah rahaa thaa.
> 
> بچّوں کا آئیس کریم کھانے کو جی مچل رہا تھا۔
> 
> bachchoN kaa aa'iis kriim khaane ko jii machal rahaa thaa.
> 
> اُس کی طبیعت جھگڑنے کی طرف مائل نہیں تھی۔
> 
> us kii tabii3at jhagRne kii taraf maa'il nahiiN thii.


 Thank you aevynn SaaHib and Qureshpor SaaHib. 

A few other translations that are often used: 

اُس کا لڑنے جھگڑنے کا کوئی ارادہ نہیں تھا
وہ اس وقت لڑنے جھگڑنے کا خواہاں بالکل بھی نہیں تھا
بچّے آئس کریم کھانے کے خواہاں/خواہش مند تھے
The translations both of you have presented as well as the three listed above could translate back into English as follows:

_The children desired to eat ice cream. _
_He did not want to fight/argue._
_He wasn't temperamentally inclined towards arguing/fighting. _
_He had no intention of arguing._
When _mood _is used in English or Urdu, it seems to convey (subtle difference) کسی چیز کا خواہاں ہونے کی/کسی طرف مائل ہونے کی *کیفیت *میں ہونا. The Urdu versions don't always appear to capture this (وقتی کیفیت میں مبتلا ہونے کا عُنصر) exactly...?!


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## aevynn

I agree that there is a subtle difference in English between wanting to do something and being in the mood to do something in that the latter is necessarily temporary (while the former is more agnostic about the longevity of the desire, but can be made temporary with the addition of an adverbial phrase along the lines of "at the time").

To me at least, _man karnaa_ (or _man honaa_) does in fact convey a sense that the desire is a _vaqtii kaifiyat_, much like _muuD_. I think @Qureshpor saaHib's _jii chaahnaa _(and the very colorful _jii machalnaa_!) also carry this sense.

To me, words like _chaahnaa_, _xwaahish-mand_, etc, are more agnostic about the longevity of the desire, but you can convey that it is a more temporary desire with the addition of an adverbial phrase along the lines of _us vaqt_, as you did in one of your translations!


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## Sheikh_14

marrish said:


> ^ it's not idiomatic Urdu either way.


Are you attempting to say achhe/bure/naa-saaz mizaaj meN honaa is incorrect? I would agree with the examples given above. Aap ke kaise mizaaj haiN is quite often use to ask about one's mood/temperament. In this vein, ice cream kaa dil honaa/aanaa/karnaa is equivalent to ice-cream ke mizaaj meN honaa I.e. to be in the mood for ice-cream. Whereas ice-cream-mizaaj honaa would be to have a temperament like ice-cream!


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## aevynn

aevynn said:


> To me, words like _chaahnaa_, _xwaahish-mand_, etc, are more agnostic about the longevity of the desire, but you can convey that it is a more temporary desire with the addition of an adverbial phrase along the lines of _us vaqt_, as you did in one of your translations!



Upon further reflection, there's an alternative to adverbial phrases for expressing that a desire is a _vaqtii kaifiyat_, which is a verb in an appropriate tense-aspect, eg, _bachchoN ko aa'is kriim khaane kii ichchhaa ho rahii thii_.


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## Qureshpor

Alfaaz said:


> Thank you aevynn SaaHib and Qureshpor SaaHib.
> 
> A few other translations that are often used:
> 
> اُس کا لڑنے جھگڑنے کا کوئی ارادہ نہیں تھا
> وہ اس وقت لڑنے جھگڑنے کا خواہاں بالکل بھی نہیں تھا
> بچّے آئس کریم کھانے کے خواہاں/خواہش مند تھے
> The translations both of you have presented as well as the three listed above could translate back into English as follows:
> 
> _The children desired to eat ice cream. _
> _He did not want to fight/argue._
> _He wasn't temperamentally inclined towards arguing/fighting. _
> _He had no intention of arguing._
> When _mood _is used in English or Urdu, it seems to convey (subtle difference) کسی چیز کا خواہاں ہونے کی/کسی طرف مائل ہونے کی *کیفیت *میں ہونا. The Urdu versions don't always appear to capture this (وقتی کیفیت میں مبتلا ہونے کا عُنصر) exactly...?!


When one translates something from one language into another, often it is possible to get an exact equivalent for most things. Sometimes one gets quite close to the other language but not quite. This is quite natural and understandable. I am sure there must be lots of Urdu words for which there is n't an exact English word.

When reading some good piece of Urdu literature (say a short story by Prem Chand), you must have come across a word, phrase or idiom and you automatically start asking yourself what its equivalent would be. On occasions you will think of something that fits the slot perfectly but on other occasions you will be left helpless. Sometimes I think of this dilemma as a shortfall in the language or in us. My own view is that the truth lies closer to the shortcoming existing in us, rather than the respective language. I know of course that in science and technology, there is no comparison between Urdu and English but here we are not talking about science and technology.

With the "word" mood, I feel the situation is that there may not be one word that fits all contexts. However, I do feel there must be a word or phrase in Urdu that fits the context for most situations. It's just that on this occasion we in this group have fallen short of the challenge and this is one of those occasions.


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