"मैं जा रही हूँ।"

I honestly need someone that explains me hindi language cause im struggling oml

August 1, 2018

Hi! How are you doing with the script? Would it help at all to turn this into Latin letters, first?

maiṅ (I) / jā (go) / rahā (-ing) / hūṅ (am) I go-ing am... I am going

Let me know which parts are most challenging.

omg thank you, you're so kind. i was struggling with the rahā because i kinda had an idea but i didn't exactly know it's meaning. thanks ^^ i learnt hindi alphabet just a while ago but i still struggling with some letters and sounds so, yeah.

No worries. Yeah, "raha" is the part that needs to be conjugated, i.e. raha (masculine), rahi (feminine), rahe (plural).

so rahā it's practically an auxiliar verb

Absolutely! It is not usually taught that way, but it is. "rahna" is "to stay", so it's kind of like one "stays" or "keeps on" doing something. It's taught as an auxiliary verb when you make a construction like this: maiṅ jātā rahtā hūṅ = "I keep going." maiṅ jātā rahā = "I kept going" (That's advanced beyond the level of the Duolingo tree though.)

Wendi710794Plus

This is a very good explanation of the verb. Thank you! The thing I don't understand is why is it written "raha" but pronounced more like reh-hee. If it is going to be written in English letters, why wouldn't it be written more phonetically (I don't think phonetically is the right word but I don't know the word to say written-in-such-a-way-that-the-pronunciation-is-obvious)? That has puzzled me ever since I first started studying Hindi because it seems like I have to learn 3 things: the devanagari script for when it is written that way, the way to spell it in English letters (which is not the letters I would use if I were sounding it out) for when a Hindi speaker is writing in the English letters, AND the English meaning. Is this just my bias as an English speaker and how I think the letters should be pronounced? I'm not sure if I'm even explaining my question well.

December 14, 2019

Hi Wendi, rahā is the masculine form and rahī is the feminine form. Sorry, the example uses rahī, but in my comment above I used the masculine form (rahā).

The reason we don't write "rehi" is because that would be a representation of रेही (or more precisely, a representation of रेहि). When we TRANSLITERATE we are taking something from one script (writing system) and converting it into another script. We are NOT writing it "phonetically." To write phonetically means to write something with special symbols in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). To write "phonetically in English" 1. doesn't exactly make sense because English itself is not "phonetic" and 2. That would only privilege English speakers, which is not the goal. The goal is to turn Devanagari script into a one-to-one corresponding set of symbols in Latin script. र = ra, ही = hī.

rahī / रही sounds as it sounds. You have to learn to pronounce the written sounds, whether you write it in Latin script, Devanagari script, or Arabic script.

The notable thing here is that when you have a word written with the vowel /a/ coming before /h/, the pronunciation of /a/ is effected by the /h/ and changes its sound. The solution is to learn the rule of pronunciation, rather than to change the spelling, which if we did would 1. be confusing and 2. Not even possible because the sound doesn't even really have a letter that represents it.

December 14, 2019

@ranzog ok now i got confused but i think i kinda got it. thanks for the extra tip!