Conversational Nepali: Part I

Conversational Nepali Language

When you are learning a new language from a book or a CD, more often than not you run into the same issue. You are excited that you learned few new sentences in a new language and you go try to speak to a native speaker. Sadly, very often the comment from the native speaker is "That is not actually how we say it", or " That is the formal way of saying it but.." I have found this to be a common case for Nepali language. I have been living in the states for almost 10 years now and have met many people who are interested in Nepal and the Nepali language. In this Nepali language course(series of posts) I will be writing about conversational Nepali. Instead of focusing on the details and different degrees or respect, I am hoping to be able help people be able to have simple Nepali conversation. Please, use the comments section if you have any questions/comments.

Introductions in Nepali Language

We will start off with some basic nepali conversations and some of the most essential questions in Nepali langauge.
Let's start with introducing yourself.

My name is BIKUL , inNepali Language would be

Mero naam BIKUL ho. (Replace the name with your own name!)

Wherever you see a CAPS UNDERLINED words, these are just examples and you should replace it with the word that relates to you.

Next, you can ask the person you are talking to what their name is?

What is your name?

Tapainko naam k ho?

Nepali language has different degrees of respect depending on the person you re talking to, for example, if you were talking to someone yournger than you you would ask, Timro naam k ho? Or tero naam k ho?(Tero is not recommended to use, as its often regarded as disrespectful and is oten used only when talking to someone considerably younger than you), Timro is used when speaking with people in similar age group and tapain is used to talking to people older than you. Hajurko is a superlative respect used often when talking to very respectful people.

In this post, for the purpose of simplicity and to stay within the scope of this site, we will use tapain, or a general respect term for all the sentences we practice.

Tip: Lot of Nepali people in the major cities of Nepal, speak some amount of English, and might be able to help you in English if you are unable to ask in Nepali during travelling. This is how you would ask if they speak English.

Do you speak English?

Tapain English/Angrezi bolnu huncha?

The nepali word for English is angrezi but most people understand the word 'English' too. It is common in Nepal to use the English word in many common occasions. Throughout the series of posts, we will point those words out. These are words that do have a nepali word for it but is not commonly used.

Where are you from?

Tapainko ghar kahan ho?

The answer would be:

I am from COLORDO/ My home is COLORADO

Ma COLORADO bata ho/ Mero ghar COLORADO ho.

Now lets, try some expressions:

I am thirsty.

Malai tirkha lageko cha

This is a useful sentence structure to be acquainted with.

You can replace the adjective in this sentence pattern to express a lot of things.

For example,

Malai bhok lageko cha

means, I am hungry, where bhok means hunger/hungry.

Now try creating new sentences yourself using the following adjectives:

Thakai-Tired

Nindra- Sleep/sleepy

Alchi- lazy

Hurt-dukhha

Jado-Cold

lageko cha can often be replaced with a single word of lagyo

The continuation to the above sentence would be,

Can I have some water?

Pani Paincha?(simple)

Or, Malai pani dinus na

This is it for the first article, let us know what you think and how you'd like these posts to progress so that you can get the most out of it!

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