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Examples of Conversations Applying Grammar Rules

In the previous lessons, we looked at the grammatical construction of a sentence in Bangla. Now we will put this knowledge to use by simulating a conversation.

For the purposes of this exercise, let us say that your name is Mary and you have come to visit Kolkata. You have just met somebody that you want to strike up a conversation with. Here are some sentences you would like to say in Bangla.

"Hi, my name is Mary. What is your name? I am visiting Kolkata. I was born in New York and I went to school there. I went to college in Florida. Now I work for a bank in California. Tell me about yourself. Where do you live? Do you have any brothers and sisters? What work do you do?"

We will take each sentence in the conversation and construct the Bangla sentences that you would use.

You greet people by saying "Namoskar" (for Hindus) and "Salaam Aleykum" (for Muslims). That is the closest we can get to the ubiquitous "Hi" in English.

The first sentence "My name is Mary" is parsed in English this way.

Subject	Verb	Object
my name	is	Mary

In Bangla, the sentence will be have a different sequence in the Verb Phrase. The Bangla word translation looks like this:

English	Bangla	Phonetic
my	আমার	amar
name	নাম	nam
is	হচ্ছে	hochchhe
Mary	মেরি	meri

The Bangla words will now be substituted and the Verb order changed to make the sentence grammatically correct in Bangla.

Subject	Object	Verb
আমার নাম	মেরি	হচ্ছে
amar nam	meri	hochchhe

In everyday speech, the ending verb "is" ( হচ্ছে hochchhe ) is usually omitted.

The second sentence is a question and can be restated as "Your name is what?"

Subject	Verb	Object
Your name	is	what

The Bangla word translation looks like this:

your	তোমার	tOmar
name	নাম	nam
is	হচ্ছে	hochchhe
what	কি	ki

As before, we will cast the sentence in Bangla.

Subject	Object	Verb
তোমার নাম	কি	হচ্ছে
tOmar nam	ki	hochchhe

As in the previous sentence, the ending verb "is" is usually omitted.

The third sentence "I am visiting Kolkata" will now be parsed and recast.

Subject	Verb	Object
I	am visiting	Kolkata

The Bangla word translation looks like this:

কলকাতা দেখতে এসেছি

I	আমি	ami
Kolkata	kolokata
am visiting	dekhote esechhi

As before, we will cast the sentence in Bangla.

Subject	Object	Verb
আমি	কলকাতা	দেখতে এসেছি
ami	kolokata	dekhote esechhi

The next sentence "I was born in New York and I went to school there." is a compound sentence consisting of "I was born in New York" and "I went to school there" with the conjunction "an" joining the two simple sentences to form a compound sentence.

Subject	Verb	Object	Conjunction
I	was born	in New York	and
Subject	Verb	Object
to school	went	there

Translations: in New York নিউ ইয়র্কে was born জন্মিয়েছি
and এবং to school স্কুলে went গিয়েছিলাম there সেখানে

I

আমি

ami

niu iyorke

jonmiyechhi

ebong)

skule)

giyechhilam)

sekhane)

Now the Bangla sentence.

Subject	Object	Verb	Conjunction
আমি	নিউ ইয়র্কে	জন্মিয়েছি	এবং
ami	niu iyorke	jonmiyechhi	ebong
Subject	Object	Verb
স্কুলে	সেখানে	গিয়েছিলাম
skule	sekhane	giyechhilam

These examples were used to demonstrate that creating grammatically correct Bangla sentences is quite easily and repeatably accomplished if you work through the Noun Phrase, Verb Phrase structure of sentences.

For these sentences that we used to introduce a person, we used the following English words and their Bangla equivalents:

Words Used in Conversation

The whole conversation in English and the Bangla sentences they generated look like this.

Introducing Yourself