"No one is speaking anything here."
Translation:यहाँ कोई कुछ नहीं बोल रहा है।
18 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
First of all the Hindi sentence is literally something like 'Anyone is not speaking anything here'.
Hindi sentences follow the subject-object-verb order. The verbs (the main verb along with the auxiliaries) always occur at the end of the sentence so बोल रहा है comes at the end. The negation नहीं comes directly before or after the verb it negates (so बोल नहीं रहा है is also right). The object- कुछ (anything) comes before the verb and the subject (कोई- anyone) comes at the beginning of the sentence. यहाँ (here) is used here more like a noun rather than an adverb so it can come before or after कोई.
Is it possible to say "यहाँ कोई नहीं कुछ बोल रहा है"? As in, "Here no one anything is saying", or is it generally always needed to translate no one with कोई and then नहीं preceding a verb?
The negation नहीं is always applied to a verb and so, it has to be placed adjacent to it.
As a result, to say 'no one' or 'nothing', we always use 'someone'/'something' (कोई /कुछ) and then negate the verb.
Yes. 'Nobody is here' would be यहाँ कोई नहीं है। You can perhaps understand it as being 'Anyone is not here' rather than 'someone is not here'.
1105
Can we distinguish between "no one is speaking something" and "someone is speaking nothing"?
- 308
I'm not sure what distinction you're trying to make. Could those statements be paraphrased as "the conversation has paused" and "we're expecting so-and-so to speak, but he isn't"? If so, then you might make your distinction by being explicit about whose speech you're waiting for and using he/she/they instead of "someone".
- 1105
I was pretty cryptic. As a native English-speaking novice to the language, the sentence "कोई कुछ नहीं बोल रहा है" seems to say "someone is not saying anything," which is like "everyone is speaking, except for one person," which is almost the opposite of "no one is speaking." I've gotten used to the idea that this is just how things are done in Hindi. An answer to my question, I think, is "सभी लेकिन एक बोल रहे हैं." Thanks.
You are right that Hindi negates the sentence 'Somebody is speaking something' as 'Anybody is not speaking something' = 'Not even somebody is speaking something'= 'Nobody is speaking anything' rather than 'Somebody is not speaking anything'.
Your last sentence would be सिवाय एक के सभी बोल रहे हैं। (सिवाय is 'except'. लेकिन is 'but').
You can also say कोई एक कुछ नहीं बोल रहा है for 'Someone is not speaking anything' though it might be more colloquial.
Why is रहा not plural which would make it रहे for लोग because it is general?
No one is speaking anything
कोइ कुछ नही बोल रहा है।
I think you can get what I mean.
I wrote "यहाँ कोई कुछ बोल नहीं रहा।" and it was marked wrong. I don't know why...
- 1105
बोल रहना is a single compound verb. <-- I wrote this, THEN I read Vinay92's comment at the top, where he says your sentence is also right. So I defer to him.