"उससे अपना सेब लो और उसे उसका केला दो।"

Translation: Take your apple from her and give her her banana.

[AJ72T]

Wow... that took some work to figure this sentence out!

[oakleydr]

This is something a mother would have to say to her children.

[Reesha835712]

The sentence wasn't read all that naturally I felt, especially at the end.

[franzidet]

Does anyone understand the grammatical difference between "usse" and "use"?

[itsshugu]

उसे - to him/her
उससे - from him/her

[LangPhile]

Right!

[LangPhile]

use usse liya hua kaila do= give her his banana( basically, the banana that you took from HIM.)

[doralaexplorer20]

Kaila nahi kela hota hai

[OJFord]

उससे seems to be pronounced उस्से, are both forms used, or is it just common pronunciation to drop the middle inherent vowel, but really it 'is there'?

[vinay92]

It's because of Schwa deletion where the implicit vowel is sometimes deleted in Hindi.
This is the same reason अपना is pronounced 'apna' instead of 'apana' and उसका is pronounced 'uska' instead of 'usaka'.

But just because उससे is pronounced 'usse' does not make it उस्से. The pronunciation of उससे can be broken down as 'us-se' while उस्से would have been 'u-sse'

[OJFord]

Ah! I recalled something about schwa deletion (..not the name) but then thought 'why would स्स exist if that was the answer'. Your last sentence makes everything clear, शुक्रिया!

[Georgi790731]

why is it your apple and not her apple?

[Kowaz]

अपना (apnaa) refers to the subject of the verb लो (lo).

[ZelieZazou]

I have a brain-twisting question about this already brain-twisting sentence: do उससे, उसे and उसका refer to the same person or to two (or even three) different people?

Let's assume there may be 3 people A, B and C besides you and the person you're talking to. Can this sentence mean "take apple from A and give A their own (A's) banana"? Or "take apple from A and give A B's banana"? Or "take apple from A and give B A's banana"? Or "take apple from A and give B their own (B's) banana"? Or "take apple from A and give B C's banana"? Or any of those depending on context?

PS: Sorry for the headache :-p

[vinay92]

It can mean any of those (if you are pointing at A, B and C while talking, for instance)

[ZelieZazou]

Aapke javaab ke liye dhanyavaad :)

[Gu3azm05]

Could this also be "Take your apple from him and give him his banana"

[vinay92]

Yes.

[KirtiChopr1]

How do you know that the other person is her when there is no specified gender?

[LangPhile]

We don't.

[alihiggs]

can it also be 'from him', his ?

[JamesNorth68358]

Weird. In the question type where you have to select the correct one from three options, for the same sentence the correct answer had no और in the middle of it even though it had an 'and' in English.

[OJFord]

As I recall it uses not लो but another form I can't remember at the moment that embeds the 'and then' meaning.

I think it's called a conjunctive form.

[vinay92]

लेके

उससे अपना सेब लेके उसे उसका केला दो।

[antoniojack]

This is way too complicated for me!

[ph.arFOy8]

Isnt the real meaning 'You take your apple and give her (or his) her (or his) banana'

[OJFord]

Yes, and they might all be different people too. (As they might in English.)

[Anwesha614701]

Her her repeatedly is this possible?

[OJFord]

'..give [to] her her [own] banana'

Modern English has very few case variations, so the two 'her's here have different grammar (as seen by the different words used for each in Hindi - उसे & उसका) but the word is nevertheless the same.

It may help to realise you could also translate it as 'give him his banana', 'give him her banana', or 'give her his banana'.