What is “hold kar” in Hinglish?
हँसी नहीं रोक पाओगे इस झगड़े पर
B2 Hindi listening practice · Standard Hindi · Curated for upper-intermediate learners
Hold कर (hold kar) is a textbook Hinglish code-switch: an English verb (hold) bolted onto the Hindi auxiliary करना (karna, “to do”). The pattern is one of the most productive in modern urban Hindi: any English verb can be Hindi-ified by adding a form of karna. Update कर लो (update it), download कर रहा हूँ (I’m downloading), forward कर दो (forward it), hold कर (hold it). Hinglish lets bilingual speakers slip the English word in and let Hindi grammar handle the conjugation. The result dominates Bombay sitcoms, Delhi metro chatter, and any Indian office where work happens half in English and half in Hindi.
In this clip, a Mumbai speaker waves off a confrontation: “एक एक minute hold कर.”
Vocabulary frequency
How common is the vocabulary in this B2 Hindi listening practice listening practice?
General Hindi frequency
Spoken Hindi frequency
Words above this video’s level
Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s B2 level.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.
- ▸In Indian sitcoms set in Mumbai and Delhi (The Family Man, Panchayat, Gullak)
- ▸In Indian YouTube comedy (All India Bakchod, Tanmay Bhat, BB Ki Vines)
- ▸In Bollywood dialogue from urban-class characters (Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Wake Up Sid, 3 Idiots)
- ▸In Indian podcast and call-in radio in metro cities
- ▸In Indian-tech-company office Slack channels and meeting voices