Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
John: Hi everyone, and welcome back to UrduPod101.com. This is Absolute Beginner, Season 1 Lesson 4 - Are You a Vegetarian in Pakistan? I’m John.
Afrah: Assalam u alaikum, I'm Afrah.
Afrah: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to say "Yes" and "No" to questions in Urdu and also to change statements into their negatives.
John: The conversation takes place in a restaurant.
Afrah: It's between Carol and Kalpana who have only met recently.
John: They don't know each other all that well since they are new acquaintances, and so they will be using formal Urdu.
Afrah: Let's listen to the conversation.
LESSON DIALOGUE
کیرول: کیا آپ سبزی خور ہیں؟
کلپنا: نہیں، میں سبزی خور نہیں ہوں.
کیرول: تو آپ کیا غیر سبزی خور ہیں؟
کلپنا: جی ہاں. لیکن میں صرف گائے کا گوشت نہیں کھاتی.
John: Now let's listen to the same conversation at a slow speed.
Carol: Kia aap sabzi khor hain?
KALPANA: Nahin, mei sabzi khor nahin hun.
Carol: Tou aap kia ghair sabzi khor hain?
KALPANA: Ji han. Lekin main sirf gaiye ka gosht nahin khati.
John: Let's now listen to the conversation with English translation.
Carol: Kia aap sabzi khor hain?
John: Are you a vegetarian?
KALPANA: Nahin, mei sabzi khor nahin hun.
John: No, I am not a vegetarian.
Carol: Tou aap kia ghair sabzi khor hain?
John: So you are a non-vegetarian then?
KALPANA: Ji han. Lekin main sirf gaiye ka gosht nahin khati.
John: Yes. But I just don't eat beef.
POST CONVERSATION BANTER
Afrah: Most of you are probably familiar with Pakistani cuisine.
John: Yes, I think a lot of you have tried at least some variation of Pakistani curry — rich with spices and herbs.
Afrah: Just talking about Pakistani food makes my mouth water.
John: Mine too!
Afrah: But you know, one usually thinks of chicken curry and mutton curry when talking about Pakistani curries, but there are so many vegetarian dishes in Pakistani cuisine too.
John: I was actually very surprised when I first found out that some people in some states are vegetarians!
Afrah: That's very true. Cuisines in the interior of Sindh province are mostly vegetarian. Other provinces like Punjab and Balochistan also have some vegetarian population.
John: And there are many reasons why people practice it. Some do it for health reasons while others for ethical and religious reasons.
Afrah: And let's not forget economic reasons. Meat products are more expensive than vegetables.
John: Yes, but enough about food or else I won't be able to concentrate with all those delicious dishes swimming in my head! Let’s move on to the vocab.
VOCAB LIST
John: First we have...
Afrah:کھاتی ہوں [natural native speed]
John: (I) eat
Afrah: kha-ti hu-n [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Afrah: khati hun [natural native speed]
John: Next we have..
Afrah: گائے کا گوشت [natural native speed]
John: beef
Afrah: Gai-ye ka go-sht [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Afrah: Gaiye ka gosht [natural native speed]
John: Next we have..
Afrah: صرف [natural native speed]
John: only
Afrah: si-rf [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Afrah: sirf [natural native speed]
John: Next we have..
Afrah: لیکن [natural native speed]
John: but
Afrah: le-kin [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Afrah: lekin [natural native speed]
John: Next we have..
Afrah: جی ہاں [natural native speed]
John: yes (formal)
Afrah: ji ha-n [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Afrah: ji han [natural native speed]
John: Next we have..
Afrah: غیر سبزی خور [natural native speed]
John: non-vegetarian
Afrah: Gha-ir sab-zi kho-r [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Afrah: Ghair sabzi khor [natural native speed]
John: Next we have..
Afrah: تو [natural native speed]
John: so
Afrah: to-u [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Afrah: tou [natural native speed]
John: Next we have..
Afrah: نہیں [natural native speed]
John: no, not
Afrah: nah-in [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Afrah: nahin [natural native speed]
John: Next we have..
Afrah: آپ [natural native speed]
John: you (formal)
Afrah: aa-p [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Afrah: aap [natural native speed]
John: And last..
Afrah: سبزی خور [natural native speed]
John: vegetarian
Afrah: sab-zi kho-r [slowly - broken down by syllable]
Afrah: sabzi khor [natural native speed]
KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES
John: Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson.
Afrah: Wow, we had a lot of new words in this lesson.
John: Which is good news, right? Okay, let's look at the phrase, "I eat."
Afrah: کهاتی ہوں. Actually, to make a complete sentence, this must be, میں کهاتی ہوں.where میں means "I,", کهاتی is "to eat," and ہوں is the to-be verb "am.".
John: Which literally means, "I eat am," but translates as "I eat.".
Afrah: Here, کهاتی comes from the root verb کهانا, which means "to eat.".
John: Wait! Before you go any further, I want to remind the listeners of one important thing. Do you all remember that in Lesson 3, we talked about adjectives and how they inflect depending on the gender of the subject, in other words, whether it's masculine or feminine?
Afrah: And they must also agree with the number of the subject - so whether it is singular or plural?
John: Well, verbs behave the same way in Urdu.
Afrah: When the subject is a male, then the root verb ends with -a ا but when the subject is a female, it ends with -i ی. So can you guess the gender of the person saying میں کهاتی ہوں. ?
John: I guess feminine.
Afrah: Right! The verb کهاتی ends with a ی and therefore it's being said by a female.
John: Perfect. What would you say if you were a male?
Afrah: For this, remember that all you have to do is change the verb by adding ا. So it would be میں کهاتا ہوں
John: Easy right? Now let’s move on to the lesson focus.

Lesson focus

John: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to say "yes", and "no" in Urdu.
Afrah: So, ہاں means "yes," and نہیں means both "no" and "not".
John: You see, in Urdu, "no" or "not" are translated as the same word depending on where it's placed in a sentence.
Afrah: ہاں and نہیں both have a nasal sound to them.
John: Let's listen and repeat.
Afrah: ہاں han, ha-n, han…
John: Which means "yes."
Afrah: نہیں nahin, nah-in, nahin…
John: Which means "no" or "not."
Afrah: If you want to be respectful, you add ji in front of han and say جی ہاں
John: And we can do the same with “no” to be more respectful?
Afrah: That's right. But in this case, جی نہیں (ji nahin) only means "no" and cannot be used as "not.".
John: Let's now talk about how to negate a sentence in Urdu.
Afrah: Negating a sentence simply means to add "not" or نہیں to a statement.
John: And how do we do this?
Afrah: Well, you just take this نہیں and add it before the verb so that the sentence structure is always نہیں + a verb.
John: Can you give us an example?
Afrah: Okay, how about this? میں ٹھیک ہوں means…
John: "I am good."
Afrah: Here, main is "I," theek is "okay," and hun is the to-be verb "am." To change this into a negative, you need to add nahin in front of the verb hun.
John: So the new sentence is…
Afrah: Main theek nahin hun.
John: "I am not okay."
Afrah: Easy right? Let's do another sentence.
John: How about "you are nice"?
Afrah: Okay, so, the word for “nice” is اچھہ for a male and اچھی for a female. Who are we addressing in this sentence?
John: Let's say a woman.
Afrah: Okay, the sentence is آپ اچھی ہیں
John: Which means "You are nice." Let's turn this into "You are not nice."
Afrah: Add nahin in front of the verb meaning "are," which in this case is نہیں, and it becomes…
آپ اچھی نہیں ہیں. Very simple!
John: Let's have one final example for this lesson.
Afrah: اردو مشکل ہے…
John: Which means "Urdu is difficult." And its negative is…
Afrah: اردو مشکل نہیں ہے.
John: Which means "Urdu is not difficult."

Outro

John: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time!
Afrah: Shukriya aur phir milenge!

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