What is “hold kar” in Hinglish?
हँसी नहीं रोक पाओगे इस झगड़े पर
B2 Hindi listening practice · Standard Hindi · Picked for people who know more
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.”
How common are the words?
How common are the words in this B2 Hindi listening practice video?
How common in Hindi
How common in spoken Hindi
Harder words in this video
These words are harder than B2. Here is what they mean.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.
- ▸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