Things around the Kitchen Posted by Nitya on Mar 29, 2017
It’s spring season (vasant rutu) and I’ve been spending a lot more time in the kitchen (rasoi ghar), trying out recipes with fresh produce from the farmer’s market. This set me thinking about the variety of tools (yuntra) and utensils (bur-tan) that one uses in the kitchen, and brought me to my next blog topic: things around the…
Learning a New Language Posted by Nitya on Mar 22, 2017
When I learn a new language, I am great at mastering grammar. Written and reading proficiency in a language comes easily to me. However I get tongue-tied and start scrambling for vocabulary when it’s time to speak. There is plenty of research out there that will point you to various approaches to learning a new…
Happy Birthday! Posted by Nitya on Mar 12, 2017
जन्मदिन की शुभकामनाएँ. Happy Birthday! Every time I hear of someone turning a year older, I can’t help, but recall this evergreen melody. Although the mood of the song is light and cheerful, it also laments the dreary nature of adulthood. ” हम भी अगर बच्चे होते नाम हमारा होता गबलू बबलू, खाने को मिलते…
The City of Dreams Posted by Rachael on Mar 6, 2017
The city of Bombay (बॉम्बे/Bombay or बंर्बइ/Bambai) officially renamed to “Mumbai” (मुंबई/Mumbai) in 1995, has loomed large in India’s popular imagination since its beginnings (शुरुआत/shuruaat, fem. noun). In the modern age, it is commonly associated with North India’s biggest film (फ़िल्म/film, fem. noun) industry, often known as “Bollywood.” Thus, it is the place where aspiring…
Onomatopoeias through Bollywood Lens Posted by Nitya on Mar 2, 2017
When I was at grocery store today, buying bitter gourd करेला (karela), green bell peppers शिमला मिर्च (Shimla mirch), and carrots गाजर (gaajar) the popular Bollywood number (from the movie Mohra featuring Raveena Tandon and Akshay Kumar, was sizzling over the speakers. … “Tip-tip barsa paani टिप टिप बरसा पानी … .” (Tip-tip denotes the sound of…
Family Stories (Parivaar ki Kahaaniya) Posted by Rachael on Feb 20, 2017
Most people enjoy listening to stories (कहानियाँ/kahaaniyaan, fem. plural noun. Singular noun: कहानी/kahaani) about their family (परिवार/parivaar, masc. noun), and I am certainly one of those people. I especially enjoy listening to my parents’ stories of when they were younger and, when my grandmother was still with us, I loved hearing her stories of growing…
Verb Tenses II: Present Progressive … and More on the Simple Present Posted by Nitya on Feb 18, 2017
Last week पिछले हफ्ते (pichhlay haftay), we looked at construction of the simple present tense सामान्य वर्त्तमान काल (saamaanya vartamaan kaal) for regular verbs क्रिया (kriya). However, instead of moving to the simple past tense, I thought it would be useful to learn the present continuous/progressive तात्कालिक वर्त्तमान काल (taatkalik vartamaan) tense. As its name denotes, the तात्कालिक वर्त्तमान काल…