Lesson #64: सकना saknaa - To Be Able To / Can
Today we’re going to be covering just one word, and that’s the verb - सकना saknaa, which translates as ‘to be able to’, or more often 'can’. By the end of this lesson you should be able to construct and understand sentences of the form 'I can…’, 'Can you…?’ etc.
Creating sentences using सकना saknaa is really easy; all you do is put सकना saknaa in it’s correctly conjugated form after the root of the verb you would usually use. Remember the root of a verb is just it’s infinitive form minus the ना naa at the end.
Let’s see an example in detail. We already know how to say;
सीमा हिन्दी बोलती है seemaa hindee boltee hai
- Seema speaks Hindi
The verb in this sentence is बोलना bolnaa - to speak and we’re using the Present Tense feminine form which adds ती tee to the verb root, giving us बोलती boltee. So to say 'Seema can speak Hindi’ we use the root of the verb - बोल bol and then सकती saktee - the present tense feminine form of सकना saknaa. So we have;
सीमा हिन्दी बोल सकती है
seemaa hindee bol saktee hai
- Seema can speak Hindi
Do you understand the changes and steps here? If not, read through the explanation a few more times!
One of the uses of this is the all important question, 'Can you speak English?’. Have a think to yourself about how you would create this sentence.
क्या आप अंग्रेज़ी बोल सकते हैं?
kyaa aap angrezee bol sakte hain
- Can you speak English?
Did you get it right? See that’s how easy it is! Now let’s see some more examples…
मैं चीनी लिख सकता हूँ
main ceenee likh saktaa hoon
- I can write Chinese (said by a male)
क्या कल तुम जा सकते हो?
kyaa kal tum jaa sakte ho
- Can you go tomorrow?
When we want to use the negative नहीं naheen, it appears before the verb root and the auxiliary (है hai, हैं hain, हूँ hoon etc ) can be dropped;
मैं नहीं तैर सकता
main naheen tair saktaa
- I can’t swim (said by a male).
क्या मैं यह खा सकती हूँ?
kyaa main yeh khaa saktee hoon
- Can I eat this? (said by a female)
नहीं, तुम वह नहीं खा सकती
naheen, tum voh naheen khaa saktee
No, you can’t eat that.
I hope you are now confident with using the word सकना saknaa in sentences! We’ll see many more examples and more complex sentences as time goes on. Practice writing your own examples to help you remember it. You can write them in the comment section below if you want to share them with everyone!
