Hai vs the (present vs past)

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ortonn
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Hai vs the (present vs past)

Postby ortonn » 2015-09-28, 15:03

Hello !
Imagine a situation in which you're narrating some past incident to someone in which one of its sentence is "I went to a shop to buy a butter and all of a sudden I saw that two people were walking towards me."?

Now what will be its Hindi version ?
"mei shop me gya butter lene aur ek dum se mei dekha ki do log meri taraf aa rhe hai/the " Isme 'hai' aaega ki 'the' ? Since I'm narrating a past incident so it should be 'the' but at the same time usage of 'hai' sounds much more natural and 'hai' seems better ? So which would be correct ?

Thanks

lingo
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Re: Hai vs the (present vs past)

Postby lingo » 2015-11-11, 18:03

ortonn wrote:Hello !
Imagine a situation in which you're narrating some past incident to someone in which one of its sentence is "I went to a shop to buy a butter and all of a sudden I saw that two people were walking towards me."?

Now what will be its Hindi version ?
"mei shop me gya butter lene aur ek dum se mei dekha ki do log meri taraf aa rhe hai/the " Isme 'hai' aaega ki 'the' ? Since I'm narrating a past incident so it should be 'the' but at the same time usage of 'hai' sounds much more natural and 'hai' seems better ? So which would be correct ?

Thanks


It's not a question of what sounds or feels right.

Aa rahe hain - are coming - present imperfect
Aa rahe The - were coming - Past imperfect
Aae the - Had come - Past perfect
Aaen hain - Have come - Present perfect.

Hope it helps. :)

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Re: Hai vs the (present vs past)

Postby vijayjohn » 2016-03-08, 6:29

I think the reason why hain might make sense here instead of the is because in that context, you're recalling what happened in that moment as if you were still there. People do that in at least some varieties of English, too, e.g. "I was walking along the road, and all of a sudden, this guy comes up to me and says..."


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