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Urdu - lack of progress | ||
Tags: Urdu | Loss of confidence | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| whitelily Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5443 days ago 42 posts - 47 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Arabic (classical), Urdu | Message 1 of 52 25 September 2012 at 11:07pm | IP Logged |
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Hi,
First of all: are there anyone else in here currently studying Urdu, or who have previously studied it? I would very much appreciate your advice and input on how best to learn Urdu. I´m trying to learn Urdu, but I feel like I´m not making that much progress. Supposedly this is an "easy" language, but I find it quite hard to learn. I´m especially struggling with verb tenses - although they may seem simple enough in the examples given in my book (Teach Yourself Urdu), I´m often corrected for using the wrong tense by native speakers, which I find to be very confusing and demotivating. Furthermore, I find myself being corrected even on sentences and constructs that I´ve gotten from the same book. It seems that a lot of the samples given in the book are somewhat wrong? I´m a little at loss as to how to proceed. I´ve worked through about 1/3 of the TYU book, I´ve memorised about 500-600 words (working on memorising all the words in that book) and when I listen to conversations I can understand the topic of conversation and (roughly) understand the main points. I´ve been using Anki, but I´ve been tempted to try Prof. Arguelles take on vocab acquisition (mainly, through reading a lot) once I´ve covered all the TYU vocab. The hard part about Urdu is that there are not a lot of easy books and good resources for advanced beginners, and I´m unsure as to what to do. I´ve got hold of a Harry Potter book in Urdu, and I already have the same book in English, but I find myself having to look up lots of words, because the translation is quite different. If someone could give me some helpful hints and point me in the right direction, I would very much appreciate it:) (Ps: I know there are more resources in Hindi, but I´m only interested in learning Urdu, and then later Punjabi). Edit: Not sure why my mac divides up the lines this way. Sorry, but I couldn´t fix it. Edited by whitelily on 25 September 2012 at 11:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Boomerang3378 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4511 days ago 34 posts - 72 votes  Speaks: English*, Urdu Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 2 of 52 26 September 2012 at 8:09pm | IP Logged |
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Ok. First things first. Who said that Urdu is an easy language to learn? The thing with Urdu is that the word order isn't the same as it is in English. There aren't good resources to learn Urdu. The best resource would be to learn from a native. And as far as those sentences are concerned(the ones that weren't corrected by the native speakers)... Can you post them here please? I want to take a look at them. I'll try to explain how the language works. Once you know that... it'll be smooth sailing.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| whitelily Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5443 days ago 42 posts - 47 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Arabic (classical), Urdu | Message 3 of 52 26 September 2012 at 10:19pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you for your reply - much appreciated!
To be honest, I´ve read this statement several times - mainly on this forum. I guess Urdu might be easy compared to languages like Arabic or Chinese, but from personal experience I´ve actually found Urdu a lot harder to learn than German, Spanish etc. I was not sure which of the sentences you referred to (my own or the ones from the book), but as far as examples from the TYU-book goes: 1.) "Kya aap kii kitaab pahR huuN?" (translated as "May I read your book.") --> I was told this sentence should include personal pronouns, and would better be translated as "Should I read your book?", and that a more correct translation would have been "Main aap ki kitaab pahr sakti hooN?" 2.) "Kya takalluf hai!" (As a way of expressing "Oh, how much trouble you have gone to!" (making e.g. lots of food). Natives told me it sounded like I was telling them they had done something bad. Lol... 3.) There are so many sentences not including personal pronouns, and I keep getting mixed messages whether it is okay or not (some say you don´t always have to include it because the conjugation of the verb makes the subject self-evident?) As far as my sentences go, I´m especially confused about the usage of past tense in Urdu. Many times when I try to express something in the present tense in English, it seems that this is expressed by using past tense in Urdu? Also, the usage of perfectum and plusquamperfectum doesn´t seem as clear cut as in English? (In terms of when one is used vs. the other.) I tried to remember (and construct) some examples of illustrative sentences that I´ve used incorrectly, but I found it difficult to remember/to do on the spot, so I´ll have to come back to that one! Yes, learning from natives is a good way to go. Do you recommend this even at the beginner level that I´m at? Even though learning from natives is good, I still think resources are important to have because natives here in the West often have problems explaining the grammar in sentences in terms of why something is correct/wrong (speaking of the Pakistani girls I know). Lastly, I would like to thank you for taking your time to explain things to me. Urdu is such a pyari zabaan and I´m not intending to give up on it. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Boomerang3378 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4511 days ago 34 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Urdu Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 4 of 52 30 September 2012 at 10:41pm | IP Logged |
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Well first of all I would like to apologize for my late response. I got caught up in some of the languages that I am currently learning. The sentences that I asked for were both yours and from the book. Anyway, I'll try to explain how it works.
The first sentence : Kya aap kii kitaab pahR huuN? This sentence is wrong period. "Kya aap ki kitab" is the only part that's correct about this sentence. The "pahr huun" is wrong. The correct sentence is "Kya mein ap ki kitab parh sakta/sakti huun?" "Sakta" is used for males and "sakti" for females. I'll explain what's going on here. "parhna" is the verb "to study".... "parh sakta hun" is "can study".... "mein parh sakta hun" is "I can study". You see the word "huun" is used as a singular from the first person perspective. For example... " Mein kaam karta hun" is "I work".... "Woh loag kaam kar saktay hein" is "Those people can work" or "Those people can do work"... "Woh" literally translates as "that" but when it is used with "loag" it means "those".... "Loag" is "people".... If you noticed... the "hun" changed to "hein" as we were not talking about ourselves but other people. Second sentence : Kya takalluf hai.... Takalluf is like saying that somebody went through alot of trouble doing something. The native way of saying it is "Itni takalluf ki kya zaroorat thii?" Which means "What was the need for you to go through so much of trouble?" "itni" in this sentence translates to "so much"... "Ki" is used after takalluf because takalluf is a female word in Urdu. I know this sounds stupid but just hear me out for now. I'll cover this in more detail later. "Zaroorat" is "need for something" and "thii/thaa" is used as the ending of a sentence in the past tense. For urdu male words we would have used "thaa" instead of "thi"... Also "zaroorat" has come from "zaroori"... "zaroori" means "necessary/important"... I'll give you an example.... "Tahleem hasil karna buhat zaroori hai aj kay doar mein"... it means "Obtaining education in today's day and age is very important" Tahleem is education. "hasil karna" is "to obtain"... "zaroori hai" means "is important" and "aj kay doar mein" means "in todays day and age".... "Aj" means "today"...."doar" means "age/period" and by "age" i dont mean the birthday age I mean like the "age" of computers etc (that age)...In urdu the age of a person is called "uumar" and "buhat" mean "very/alot". Now you see, unfortunately, there is one problem for you. Most of the time it is not possible to literally translate from urdu to English. The word order of Urdu is different to that of English which I know you already figured out a long time ago. Lets take the above example into view.... English: " Obtaining education is very important in today's day and age". If I were to literally translate this to urdu we would have.... Urdu: "Hasil karna tahleem hai buhat zaroori mein aj kay doar"..... This sentence is wrong. Very wrong infact. Now lets take the correct Urdu sentence. Urdu(correct) : "Tahleem hasil karna buhat zaroori hai aj kay doar mein". Now lets try to literally translate this to English. English: "Education to obtain very important is today's age in". See how funny this sentence looks. Urdu is a pyaari zaban indeed. To say this in Urdu you say..."Urdu pyari zabaan hai" which means "Urdu is a beautiful language" but natives seldomly will say it this way even though its 100% correct. Natives will say "Urdu toh eik buhat he pyari zabaan hai". "eik" means "one" and you know what "buhat" means. Now for "toh" and "he". You also must be wondering why "eik" is being used. You see when urdu speakers describe things they generally use this sentence format. "x" toh eik buhat hi pyari/achi "y" hai. Where "x" and "y" are things being described. Say it in this way and people will know you are a native unless you speak with an accent ofcourse. Lets take some more examples. "Angerezi toh eik buhat hee achi zabaan hai"... you should be able to know what this means. "USB toh eik buhat hi achi device hai. "USB is a very good device" Cigarette toh eik buhat he buri cheez hai... "Cigarette is a very bad thing"..... buri=bad....cheez=thing. "Samandar ka kinara toh eik buhat he achi jaga hai". "The Beach is a very nice place"....Samandar=Sea,Kinara=edge, ka=of, jaga=place. "MIT toh eik buhat he zabardast university hai". "MIT is a fantastic university" I hope this helped. You can ask me any question you like. Please feel free. 10 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Boomerang3378 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4511 days ago 34 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Urdu Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 5 of 52 30 September 2012 at 11:54pm | IP Logged |
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Now to give you some insight about the past tense. There's a lot more to learn in the present tense as the examples I provided above were just to give you a feel of the language. That's why if you would want to ask me any questions regarding the above post about some explanations that were not clear please feel free to ask.
Ok the past tense. Lets start off simply. The words "tha" and "thi" are used to end simple sentences being used in the past tense depending on whether the word is masculine or feminine. Present: Mein kaam karta/karti hun. (I work) Past: Mein kaam karta/karti tha/thi. (I used to work) Karta/karti(do) and tha/thi depend on who the "mein (I)" is. If a man is speaking then "karta tha" is used and "karti thi is used for a woman/girl. Present: Yay larki pakistani hai. (This girl is a pakistani national) Past: Yay larki pakistani thi. (This girl was a pakistani national) Simple enough right? Ok, lets go on to more complicated structures. Present+future: Mein filal apne doast k ghar mein hun. Parhai kar raha hun. Baadh mein, mein market jaaon gah. Wahan say eik ps3 khareedun gah aur phir ghar ki taraaf nikal jaaon gah. (Iam, currently, in my friend's house. I am studying. Later on, I will go to the market. From there I will buy a ps3 and then go home. filal=currently. Apne=mine. doast=friend. apne doast=my friend not "mine friend".... Ok, you see "apne doast" actually means "your friend"... but because "mein(I)" is being used in the sentence, "apne doast" means "my friend"..."Filal" can be used in-between "mein" and "apne"... before "mein" and after "hun" but NOT after "apne". Ghar=house.... The word "mein" is used as two words in English. "Mein" can either mean "I" or "in"... So the "mein" after "ghar" means "in the house" ... Baadh=Later...Baadh mein= "Later on" NOT "Later in"... I know it sounds stupid to say that I went to buy a ps3 from a market lol but thats how you would say it in Pakistan..... mein market jaon ga="i will go to the market"...Wahan=there...wahan say=from there... kareedun ga=I will buy.... eik ps3 khareedun ga=I will buy a ps3...aur=and...phir=then/afterwards... "mein ghar ki taraf nikal jaon gah" literally means "i will go in the direction of my house"... nikal jaon gah=going in some direction... ghar/iskool/market/cinema/janat ki taraf nikal jaon gah means... I will go in the direction of the x,y,z. Past: Mein apne doast k ghar mein thaa. Parhai kar raha tha. Baadh mein, mein market gaya tha. Wahan say eik ps3 khareed lia aur phir ghar ki taraaf nikal gaya. (I was in my friend's house. I was studying. Later on, I went to the market. From there I bought a ps3 and then went home/ went in the direction of my house. Lets check out the verb conjugations for the verb "to go" so that you feel a little comfortable. Jana...to go PRESENT ======== mein jata hun...I go Tum jatay ho... you go Aap jatay hein (formal)...you go Woh jata/jati hai....He/she goes Woh jatay hein... They go. Hum jatay hein...We go Tum loag jatay ho...You go (plural) Aap loah jatay hein (formal)... You go (plural) PAST ==== Mein gaya tha...I went Tum gaye thay... You went Aap gaye thay (formal)...You went Woh gaya/gayi tha/thi... He/she went Woh gaye thay... They went Hum gaye thay... We went Tum loag gaye thay... You went(plural) Aap loag gaye thay(formal)... You went(plural) FUTURE ====== Mein jaon gah... I will go Tum jao gay... You will go Aap jayen gay(formal)... You will go Woh jaye/jayi ga/gi... He/She wil go Woh loag jayen gay.. They will go Hum loag jayen gay... We will go Tum loag jayen gay... You will go (plural) Aap loag jayen gay(formal)... You will go (plural) 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Boomerang3378 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4511 days ago 34 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Urdu Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 6 of 52 01 October 2012 at 4:10pm | IP Logged |
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Okay, now lets examine the first sentence from your second post again.
"Kya aap kii kitaab pahR huuN?" This sentence is not wrong grammatically but it is wrong spelling wise. The part which I said was wrong is "pahR huun". So let me explain why. It is "parh" not "pahr". And this sentence is correct if you say " Ap ki kitab parhun?" although it is much better to add "parh sakta/sakti hun". Also, you have to note that in Urdu "parhna" means "to study" and "to read" so depending on the context you will have to use it accordingly. The sentence "Ap ki kitab parhun?" is a correct sentence but it is used in a very few circumstances. Let me tell you where. Suppose if someone buys you a book. You take it to school. You do not like that book and do not like to read it. Your friend sees it and you explain to him what the books about. Then he will suddenly ask "Agar ap ko yay kitab achi nahn lagti to mein parhun?" Which means "If you do not like this book can I read it"? He could have also said "Agar ap ko yay kitab achi nahn lagti hai toh kya mein parh sakta hun?" OR "Agar ap ko yay kitab achi nahn lagti hai toh kya mein ap ki kitaab parh sakta hun?" All these sentences are correct. But the sentence that WILL be used in this circumstance will be either "Agar ap ko yay kitab achi nahn lagti to mein parhun?" OR "Agar ap ko yay kitab achi nahn lagti hai toh kya mein parh sakta hun?". They will seldom use the last sentence. The reason is that the other two sentences are shorter than the third and because of the speed with which urdu speakers talk they will most likely end up saying "Agar ap ko yay kitab achi nahn lagti to mein parhun?" As everything is shortened. I'll come to this in more detail later on. Now to explain why the spelling is wrong. There are many P sounds in Urdu. The alphabet representing the P sound in Urdu is "PAY". So in "to study" which is "parhna" you have a "pay + r'ray + hay + na" all joined to form the word. The last syllable "na" is formed by the urdu alphabets "nuun" and "Alif". Thats why you have to be careful how you write urdu words using the English equivalents because sometimes your sentences may be correct but will be termed wrong by natives because you spelt it incorrectly. For example, do you know what I thought "pahR" was when I first saw it in your sentence? I thought it was "mountain" because in Urdu the word for mountain is "pahar". So you have to get the spelling right. Unless you learn the Urdu script properly and then write in English you will have some difficulty at this stage. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Boomerang3378 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4511 days ago 34 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Urdu Studies: Italian, Finnish | Message 7 of 52 01 October 2012 at 4:54pm | IP Logged |
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Now for the use of "Ki" which I said I'll explain in detail. Urdu like other languages have genders for animate as well as for inanimate objects. Just like the Romance languages. There is no rule. And no body on Earth can explain why one word is male or female in Urdu so forget what anybody tries to tell you. You will have to learn all the genders by heart unfortunately.
Now the word "takalluf" has come from the word "takleef". "Takleef" means "problem/hardship". Takleef is a female word in Urdu which means all the sentences it will be used in will use all the corresponding female endings in Urdu. Lets look at a few examples. Muje takleef horahi hai (I am in pain/ I am not at ease) "Muje" means "to me" and "horahi hai" means "is happening"... So it literally translates as "To me pain is happening". Note the "horahi hai" ending which is a female ending because "takleef" is feminine. Lets take another word which means "problem" in urdu - "Masla". Now "Masla" is a masculine word. Lets take the same example from above. Muje masla horaha hai. (I am having a problem) You should be able to guess why "horaha hai" is being used at the end of this sentence. It is also interesting to note that besides "masla(m)" and "takleef(f)" Urdu speakers use the English word "problem" to say they have a problem. And the word "problem" also has a gender. It is feminine. Lets take a look at a few sentences. Muje problem horahi hai ( I am Having a problem) Muje is mein problem horahi hai (I am having a problem in this) Muje estonian parhnay mein bara masla hota hai (I have a big problem in studying estonian) Mein darakt charnay gaya tha. Mera haath chhil gaya. Ab buhat takleef horahi hai. ( I went to climb a tree. I cut/scraped my hand. Now I am in alot of pain) Takleef is also used for emotional pain. Lets take an example. Muje Japanese larkian buhat pasand hai. Mein nay eik ko propose kia aur unhoan nay muje chaanta maara. Ab buhat takleef hoti hai ( I like japanese girls very much. I proposed to one and she slapped me. Now I am in alot of pain (emotional) ) This is all to show you the female endings associated with the word "takleef" and "problem" There's ALOT more to cover in this. So feel free to ask me which sentences you're having problems with and I'll help you with them. These posts of mine were just small examples to help you understand a little bit about Urdu. Next, if you have any sentences you're not sure how to say... post them here and I'll post them in Urdu and explain them in detail. Good luck. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| whitelily Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5443 days ago 42 posts - 47 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Arabic (classical), Urdu | Message 8 of 52 01 October 2012 at 10:10pm | IP Logged |
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Aap ki madad ka bahut, bahut shukria. Yeh bahut faidemand tha. I really appreciate you taking the time to
carefully explain the grammar. I have read through all you wrote, and I found it to be well explained. "Urdu pyari zabaan hai" which means "Urdu is a beautiful language" but natives seldomly will say it this way even though its 100% correct. Natives will say "Urdu toh eik buhat he pyari zabaan hai". To be honest, I had to laugh at myself when reading this, because that is how I most definitively would have and have expressed it in the past (i.e. the wrong way) - so this was an eye-opener for me. *jotting down in notebook* The other day, I saw a way of using verbs which I (despite trying to look it up in a grammar book), have not be able to fully grasp. وہ ایک لکڑہارا تھا۔ ساری عمر اس نے جنگلوں میں جا کر لکڑیاں کاٹ کر انھیں بیچا تھا اور اپنی اس محنت سے جنگل سے کچھ دور ایک چھوٹا سا مکان بنوایا تھا، جس میں وہ، اس کی بیوی اور جوان بیٹا رہتا تھا (I hope the sentence comes out right despite the Urdu script). I do understand the gist of the sentence, but I specifically do not understand how the verbs are used in the first part of the second sentence: "jaa kar lakRiyaaN kaaT kar". Is it just like a "set" expression "to go wood-cutting"? Another example of this: کتنی لکڑیاں ہر روز کاٹنی ہوں گی اور انھیں کس طرح گٹھا بنا کر سر پر اٹھا کر شہر میں وہاں لے جانا ہو گا، جس جگہ لکڑیاں بیچی جاتی ہیں، لکڑہارے نے اسے اس جگہ کا نام بھی بتا دیا Here we see the same: "kaThaa banaa kar sar par uThaa kar" (I´m just writing out the part specifically that I don´t understand). Also, if time permits it, could you explain the use of the verb lagna. The grammatical books do not explain it very well, and it seems like there are a lot of different uses of this verb. I don´t really understand why/how this verb is used in this sentence: "bataane laga". اس نے کلہاڑا اٹھا کر شرفو کے کندھے پر رکھ دیا اور اسے بتانے لگا کہ اچھے پیڑ کہاں کہاں ہیں Again, I really appreciate your help. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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