dteaj
Dancing in the chorus
Posts: 14
Favorite actor: Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar
Favorite actress: Rani Mukerjee, Kareena Kapoor
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Post by dteaj on Mar 21, 2014 11:47:49 GMT
Can anyone tell me why the following line अरे मैं कब किसी से डरता हूँ are mai.n kab kisii se Darta huu.n
translates as Hey, I'm not afraid of anyone
as best I can tell, it reads
hey, whenever, from whomever, I am afraid
my translation doesn't make sense, but I don't understand where the negation is coming from.
Thanks!
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NewLaura
Dancing in the chorus
Posts: 28
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Post by NewLaura on Mar 21, 2014 13:19:14 GMT
You're right, I don't think there is a negation in it, really. Think of it more like a rhetorical question than a negation. Hey/Geez, when (कब) am I (मैं..हूँ) afraid (डरता) of anyone (किसी से)? I'm sure someone else would give a better grammar explanation than I could, though. eta: the से goes with डरना to mark what it is you're afraid of, if that makes any sense, so it means "of" rather than "from" in this context
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Post by James on Mar 21, 2014 18:08:07 GMT
I basically agree with Laura. I see no negation, the 'se' follows the thing/person that one fears. e.g. main vyaakaran/grammar se darta hoon / I'm afraid of grammar. I might translate slightly differently as, "When do I fear anyone?!", but it's not a significant difference from Laura's translation. If it helps, here's a word-for-word breakdown of the Hindi sentence: are (exclamation!) main (I) kab (interrogative, when) kisi se (of anyone; koi inflects to kisi because of postposition 'se') darta hoon (indicative, present: afraid) Dteaj, I remember word order being really difficult for me when I started with Hindi, and I found that even with my difficulty with English grammar, trying to take the word-for-word Hindi translation and switch it up to reflect English grammar helped a lot with comprehension. So to change your translation from the Hindi to the English word order: hey, whenever, from whomever, I am afraid Hey, when am I afraid from whomever Would help, no? You have to make adjustments for differences in grammar, e.g., interrogative is indicated in English by inversion of verb and subject (am I? vs I am) and in Hindi that doesn't happen because the word 'when' has two forms, and here it's the interrogative one, a question-marker. So I did invert the English of your translation, but other than that, your translation pretty much makes sense as long as you correct the word order to reflect English grammar.
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dteaj
Dancing in the chorus
Posts: 14
Favorite actor: Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar
Favorite actress: Rani Mukerjee, Kareena Kapoor
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Post by dteaj on Mar 23, 2014 15:27:35 GMT
Thanks, Laura. The rhetorical nature and of/from thing and what it went with really helped.
Thanks to you, James for the very thorough explanation. I think reversing the grammar will really help for a while. I have been attempting to think in Hindi and maybe it will be useful to back off a little and get the basics right!
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Post by James on Mar 24, 2014 2:10:45 GMT
I thought you did a really good job, Dteaj, I hope I didn't give the wrong impression. Songs even today confuse me at times, but it's because they *are* confusing. Sometimes on purpose, to make you think, sometimes due to vocabulary or slang, and sometimes because they're not always well written! Maybe continue on as is but try some prose? Just a thought.
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