Can you remember what we covered last time in Compound Verbs Part 1? That’s right, we began to discover about a great feature of Hindi known as Compound Verbs. These are simply the combination of two verbs; the first verb, which we call the Main Verb, tells us what was done and the second, the Auxiliary, tells us roughly ‘how’ it was done. In the last lesson we learnt our first Auxiliary verb, जाना jaanaa which gives the general meaning of a completeness of the action. For example we might say…

मैं बड़ा सैंडविच खा गया
main baraa saindvich khaa gayaa
- I ate up the big sandwich.

Check back to Lesson #113 if you’re confused! Today we’re going to learn about two more Auxiliary verbs, लेना lenaa and देना denaa. Are you ready to get straight into it? अच्छा acchaa - Great! So here goes…

Using the verb लेना lenaa - literally 'To Take’, as an Auxiliary Verb gives the general meaning that the Main Verb has some benefit towards the subject (the doer) of the sentence. So what does this mean? Well let me explain with some examples. Can you remember our example from the start of last lesson? We had…

मैं ने किताब पढ़ ली
main ne kitaab parh lee  
- I read a book to myself

So the Main Verb here is पढ़ parh - read. Remember that लेना lenaa is irregular in Past Tense (see Lesson #88). Using the Auxiliary लेना lenaa here gives the sense that the reading benefited the subject (that is the person speaking). The reading benefited only them so they must have read to themself!

As mentioned in last lesson, we use ने ne here because both पढ़ना parhnaa - To Read and लेना lenaa - To Take need ने ne!

Did you follow that? Are you ready for another example?  

ऋषभ ने घर ख़रीद लिया
rishabh ne ghar khareed liyaa
- Rishabh brought a house (for himself).

Here we’ve used the Auxiliary लेना lenaa to show the benefit of the action 'flows’ towards Rishabh. He brought the house and he is benefiting from it - he brought the house for himself! Are you following? Let’s see another example…

ये चीज़ें ले लो ye ceezen le lo
- Take these things

So what have we done here? Well let’s go through from the start of the sentence and break it down! We start with ये चीज़ें ye ceezen - These things. 'Thing’ in Hindi is चीज़ ceez (F). 

Then we’ve used the Compound Verb ले लेना le lenaa in the तुम tum imperative form (see Lesson #77) to give us ले लो le lo - Take. The Main verb ले le tells us we mean 'take’ and the Auxiliary tells us we mean the benefit is towards the person we’re talking to. It’s like we’re literally saying 'Take these things and you will benefit from it somehow’. Are you following? If you have any questions please feel free to ask me in the comments section below!

Now in a very similar way, our second Auxiliary for today, देना denaa - literally 'To Give’, gives the general meaning that the general flow of benefit of the action is away from the subject of the sentence (the doer) or towards someone else. Can you remember our second example from last lesson? We had…

मैं ने किताब पढ़ दी 
main ne kitaab parh dee  
- I read a book out loud

So what’s happened in this sentence? Well we’ve used देना denaa as an Auxiliary here - it’s told us that the person speaking read a book and that other people benefited from it. They read it out loud for other people to hear! Ready for another example? 

मुझे प्याज़ दे दो mujhe pyaaz de do
- Give me the onion.

So what have we done here? Well firstly we have मुझे mujhe - which is just another way to say मुझको mujhko - 'to me’. Then प्याज़ pyaaz - Onion. Finally we’ve used the Compound Verb दे दो de do as an Imperative to mean 'give the onion to me (and away from you)’. Using the Compound Verb emphasises that the person you’re talking to is giving something away from them and toward you. Does that make sense? Ready for one last example? 

उस ने अपना गुर्दा बेच दिया 
us ne apnaa gurdaa bec diyaa
- He sold his own kidney

This may seem a bizarre sentence but it’s in fact taken from even more bizarre news story. If you’re up for a challenge try and practice some Hindi and read the story yourself here! (Note please do not sell your own kidney!) 

Here we’ve used to noun गुर्दा gurdaa - Kidney (M) and the Main Verb बेच bec - To Sell. The Compound Verb tells us that he sold it and this had a benefit for someone else and not for himself. Following?

And that’s it for today! these Compound Verbs can be a little confusing to begin with so don’t worry if it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. I’ll show you some more examples and we’ll also learn about some more Auxiliary verbs very soon.

Do you have any questions or comments? If so then leave them in the comments section just below and I’ll do my best to help. 

Back to the Intermediate Grammar Section.