#mod:amber

[currylangs]

Hindi Lesson 18: Passive Verbs

A passive verb is a verb that describes a state of being, or a state of being acted upon. In English, they usually translate as “to be x”. They are always intransitive.

Some examples are:

खुलना - khulna - to be open (as a door)

पकना - pakna - to ripen/to become cooked (food)

दिखना - dikhna - to be seen, to be visible (to someone)

We can make transitive versions of passive verbs -- and vice versa! -- by using the process we learned in the last lesson.

खुलना - khulna - to be open (in.)

खोलना - kholna - to open (t.)

पकना - pakna - to ripen/to become cooked (in.)

पकाना - pakaana - to cook (t.)

जलना - jalna - to be burnt (of food, skin, paper…) (in.)

जलाना - jalaana - to burn, to light on fire (t.)

दिखना - dikhna - to be seen (in.)

देखना - dekhna - to see (t.)

We can go one step further with देखना and get:

दिखाना - dikhana - to show, to cause (someone) to see (t.)

* in. = intransitive / t. = transitive

[exhaustedsuggestions-blog]

Half the time since february nothing feels real and I don't know the last time I got a decent night's sleep. I feel like my anxiety is slowly drowning me.

[currylangs]

Hindi Lesson 16: Intransitive and Transitive Verbs

Hindi has two main verb classes, which sometimes behave differently from each other. The classes are transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. If you understand that, you can skip the rest of the explainy paragraphs and go straight to the vocab.

A Transitive verb is a verb that has a direct object. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the object is stated in every sentence, but it does mean that if it isn’t, it would be perfectly logical to ask “What”? after the verb, for instance, what did you do? eat. what did you eat? food.

By contrast, an Intransitive verb is any verb where that question…. just doesn’t make any sense. For instance, what did you sleep? huh? what did you go? are you even awake while you’re talking right now. “Where” would make sense in these questions, but what wouldn’t.

In English, most things in a sentence that aren’t either a subject or a direct object are preceeded by a postposition, for example I ate cake but I slept AT the store, so you can use this as a test too. Whichever is easier for you.

Eventually they will become automatic to tell apart, I promise.

Some Intransitive Verbs:

aana आना (to come)

jaana जाना (to go)

hona होना (to be)

Some Transitive Verbs:

khaana खाना (to eat)

peena पीना (to drink)

lena लेना (to take)

dena देना (to give)

You can form a transitive verb from most verbs of motion by adding -aa -आ to the end of the stem, or by lengthening -a अ to -aa आ in the final syllable of the stem . They’re not all completely regular, but they are easy to guess and recognize!

Some Examples are:

nikalna निकलना (to emerge, intranstive) - nikaalna निकालना (to take out, transitive)

utarna उतरना (to come down, intranstive) - utaarna उतारना (to take down, transitive)

chalna चलना (to walk, intranstive) - chalana चलाना (literally “to make walk/go”, this is what “drive” translates to, and it also has some more abstract meanings like “to turn on”, transitive)

This works for some emotional states too:

hansna हँसना (to laugh, intransitive) - hansaana हँसाना (to make [someone] laugh, transitive)

rona रोना (to cry, intranstive) - rulana रुलाना (to make [someone] cry, transitive)