Last month I started updating my Facebook status with a Hindi word of the day every morning as a way to make use of all these new Hindi words that have been floating around in my head since I started watching Bollywood movies. I lost my original paper list that I was using to keep track of the words I posted, but I've tried to reconstruct it here as much as possible. Ninety-eight percent of the words listed here are ones that I've picked up by watching movies; they just stuck in my head. I chose words I already knew the meaning of, but I looked most of them up first to check spelling and to pin down more specific meanings. The ones I didn't know beforehand include mangal, which I heard in a song lyric and had to look up, and barf/barfistan, which I saw in the dictionary and had to use on a snowy day at the end of April (had to! How could I not!). I also came across the explanation of parsom/tarsom/narsom in my Living Language Hindi Complete Course book. The other books I've been using for reference include Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi Script, Teach Yourself Hindi Dictionary, Teach Yourself Hindi Complete Course, and the Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary. Despite all these reference sources, it is still totally possible that I read something wrong or misunderstood it--so keep in mind that this list is made by someone who's only been watching Hindi movies on a regular basis since November and has no previous experience with the language.
kitna? (how many?)
mangal (auspicious, fortunate, well-being, good fortune)
chellu! (let's go!)
zindagii (life)--this is my favorite word. I just love how it sounds and looks: zinnndddaaaggiiiiiii
chup! (shut up!)
saach (true, truth)
jhuut (lie, lying, falsehood)
dekho! (look!)
sunno! (listen!)
kahaanii (story, tale)
paagal (mad, crazy); "tum paagal ho!" ("you're mad!")
deewana/deewani ([m./f.] crazy, obsessed, besotted, insane)
shaayad (perhaps)
jaldi (hurry)
kitaab (book)
kal (yesterday/tomorrow); parsom (day before yesterday/day after tomorrow); tarsom (day before the day before yesterday/day after the day after tomorrow); narsom (day before the day before the day before yesterday/day after the day after the day after tomorrow)
dhanyavaad/shukriyaa (thank you)
lekin (but)
barf (snow); barfistan (snowy expanse, snowy waste)
sirf (only)
chotaa/chotii/chote ([m./f./pl.] small, little)
baraa/barii/bare ([m./f./pl.] big, large, great)
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Shabash! Somewhere I wrote something up about the types of words I was learning from movies - ghost, lie, 4 words for love - and how much that told me about the kinds of movies I was watching. It's so fun!
ReplyDeleteSorry this is such a late comment - apparently I do not have you in my RSS as I had thought.