自学印地语2  我们的家庭

Did you know?

English used to have a similar singular/plural distinction, but the singular pronouns 'thou (thou art), thee, thy, thine' have been dropped - which is why even a single person is now addressed by the plural 'you are', rather than 'you is'.

How are you?

This is a good moment to introduce another new word, the very important
कैसा  kaisa, 'how?',

as in 'how are you?'. (Later we'll see that it can also mean 'what kind of?')

राजू ,सस्प कैसे है ?
Raju, aap kaise hai? Raju, how are you?
गीता ,आप कैसी है .
Gita, aap kaisi hai? Geeta, how are you?
आपके भाई कैसा है ?
apka bhai kaisa hai? How is your brother?

आपकी बहिन   कैसी है ?
apki bahin kaisi hai? How is your sister?
आपके मेटा-पिता कैसे है ?
apke mata-pita kaise hai? How are your parents?
राम तुम कैसी हो ?
Ram, tum kaisi ho? Meena, how are you?

मीना तुम हैसी हो ?
Mina, tum kaisi ho?
Meena, how are you?

4 Getting formal

As we have seen in the आप –तुम- टू  ap-tum-tu distinction, Hindi has a hierarchy of formality: calling someone आप aap shows respect, and sets them above' people referred to as तुम tum, who in turn have higher status than those addressed as टू  tu

You may be familiar with similar systems in languages like French, with its distinction between 'vous' and 'tu' in the second person ('you'). But in Hindi, the system extends to the third person: 'he/she' can be expressed with the plural pronouns ये  ye and वे  ve instead of यह yah and वह  vah. In effect, it's like referring to an individual person as 'they' rather than as 'he' or 'she'. The bad news is that verbs and adjectives must be plural to match!

As there's no difference between this 'honorific' plural and a numerical plural, some statements could be ambiguous:

वे अच्छे आदमी हैं .
ve acche admi hai. He is a good man. / They are good men.
मेरे भाई लंबे हैं .
mere bhai lambe hai. My brother is tall. / My brothers are tall.

But this ambiguity only occurs in the masculine. In the feminine,only numerically plural nouns show plural forms. Compare the following: