English and Hindi/ Contrastive Grammar

ENGLISH AND HINDI- Study in languages

This page covers difference between English and Hindi.

English belongs to the Indo-European language family and falls under Scandinavian languages. English is one of the most spoken languages in the world, with 360 to 400 million speakers for whom it is their mother tongue, 400 million speakers for whom it is their second language and 600 to 700 speakers for whom it is a foreign language. Whereas Hindi is one of the most studied languages and one of the richest languages in the world as enlisted by the UN. There are total (including language 1 and language 2 speakers) 380 million speakers in the whole world.

Here are a few differences between two of the richest languages in the world enlisted below

Sentence Structure

In English the sentence structure is subject-verb-object (SVO). However, in Hindi, the sentence structure is subject-object-verb (SOV). Below are some examples of translations done literally according to word to word translations:-

• (hindi) माँ ने मुझे स्कूल भेजा → Mother me school sent
• (hindi) रानी पानी पीने गयी → Rani water drink went
• (hindi) आदमी खाना खाने गया → Man food eat went

Below are the previous sentences rearranged to English grammar standards.

• (hindi) माँ ने मुझे स्कूल भेजा → My mother sent me to school
• (hindi) रानी पानी पीने गयी → Rani went to drink water
• (hindi) आदमी खाना खाने गया → Man went to eat food

Pronouns

Personal Pronouns

• (hindi) मुझे गाने सुनना पसंद है → I like listening to songs
• (hindi) वह सड़कों पर कुत्ते को बाहर ले गया → He took the dog out in the streets.
• (hindi) तुम मेरी बेटी हो → You are my daughter

Possessive Pronouns

In Hindi, the possessive pronoun is a lot like English. It may have the possessive pronoun precede the noun or the possessive noun may precede the object. This is the most common way to demonstrate ownership of a noun. Below are the literal translations (word to word):-

• (hindi) रोजी अपना हार खरीदना चाहता है → Rosie her necklace buy want.
• (hindi) आर्य उसकी बहन है → Arya her sister is
• (hindi) वह बारिश में गा रहा है → He rain in singing.

Actual translations:-

• (hindi) रोजी अपना हार खरीदना चाहता है → Rosie wants to buy her necklace
• (hindi) आर्य उसकी बहन है → Arya is her sister
• (hindi) वह बारिश में गा रहा है → He is singing in the rain

Adjectives

Adjectives are those words which describe the nouns. There are very few or slight differences between English adjective and Hindi adjectives. One of the major difference compared to Hindi Adjectives is that English adjectives does not modify themselves for the noun.

• (hindi) मकान बहुत बड़ा है। → Building is very big"
• (hindi) रोहन बहुत लंबा है। → Rohan is very tall
• (hindi) ड्रेस बहुत सुंदर है। → Dress is very pretty

Verbs

Verb are words to indicate any action taking place in a particular time frame. It should be clear whether that action is current, occurred in the past or expected to occur in future.

Present tense

• {{test|hindi|मैं स्कूल के लिए चला।|I walk to school}
• (hindi) साहिब तेज से दौङता ह। → Sahib runs fast
• (hindi) बच्चे फुटबॉल खेलते हैं। → Children play football

Past tense

• (hindi) मैं स्कूल के लिए चला गया → I went for school
• (hindi) साहिब तेजी से भाग गया। → Sahib ran fast
• (hindi) बच्चों ने फुटबॉल खेला → Children played football

Future tense

• (hindi) मैं स्कूल जाऊँगा → I will go to school
• (hindi) साहिब तेजी से दौङेगा। → Sahib will run fast
• (hindi) बच्चे फुटबॉल खेलेंगे। → Children will play football

types of verbs

1. Transitive verb: Transitive verb are those verb which normally have a direct object:

Examples:-

• (hindi) राम समाचार पत्र पढ़ रहा है। → Ram is reading a newspaper
• (hindi) सीता बाजार जा रही है। → Sita is going to the market
• (hindi) जॉनसन क्रिकेट खेल रहा है। → Johnson is playing cricket

2) Intransitive verb: Intransitive verbs which does not have any specific object on which the action being done:

• (hindi) बच्चों रो रहे हैं। → Children are crying
• (hindi) रंजन खेल रहा है। → Ranjan is playing.
• (hindi) मोहन सो रहा है। → Mohan is sleeping.

As mentioned earlier the word order is not quite the same. The verbs tend to right at the beginning of the sentence right after subject.

CONCLUSION

Our world have over a thousand languages, and over a million dialects. We should learn more about our varied languages, cultures and lives. These two languages and considered to be one of the most richest languages in the world and there are more. Let us explore the sweetness of our varied heritage even more by stepping forward to embrace our lingual differences and start adopting them.