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I was in the public library and came across a dozen children’s books in Hindi.  I checked out one called नटखट बछिया which means “Naughty Girl Calf”.  I thought it would be a good idea to learn the Hindi required to read this book.  Therefore, we will look at a few sentences in the book, one at a time, and talk through the vocabulary and the grammar.  Hopefully, this will improve your understanding of Hindi.

Here is the first sentence:

 

यह कहानी गौरी नाम की बछिया की है।

This story is of a girl calf named Gourii.

यह – this

कहानी (f) – story

गौरी – Gouri (girl’s name)

नाम – name

की – that/of

बछिया – girl calf

है – is

—

Other examples of using these words:

यह किताब है। – This is a book.

यह -  can also mean “he” or “she” and implies nearness.  For example:  यह सुनील है। – This is Sunil.  There is another version of this pronoun that is used when there is a postposition.  For example, I could say “His name is Sunil.”  And that would be “इसका नाम सुनील है।.  See how यह has changed to इस when we add the का.

यह कहानी छोटी है। – This story is small.

Notice how we said छोटी instead of छोटा.  That is because कहानी is feminine and we have to make the adjective agree with it.  If I was saying the “The boy is small.” then it would be लड़का छोटा है।. 

गाय का बच्चा बछिया कहलाता है। A cow’s child is called “bachiyaa”.  This is actually a feminine calf.  Like in a previous example, we would say यह छोटी बछिया है। This is a small girl calf. 

A boy calf is called बछड़ा.

Questions:

Write the English words for the following Hindi words:

1) कहानी

2) बछिया

3) गौरी

Write the Hindi words for the following English Words:

4) this (as in “This is a book”)

5) his (as in “His name is Sunil”)

6) is