A Door Into Hindi: Lesson 19

View movie about 'वाला'

वाला/वाले/वाली are versatile postpositions which can be used with any verb, noun, or adjective to denote a person somehow associtaed with that action, thing or quality, कार वाला/मोटर वाला could mean any of the following: a driver (i.e.chauffeur), the owner of the car, the person who is driving, the person standing next to the car, a person who owns a car business, etc. Here are some other examples:

नाचने वाला/वाली dancer  बस वाला/बस चलाने वालाthe bus driver

यात्रा करने वाला traveler फल वाला the fruit seller

आने वाला the one who is  बोलने वाला the one speaking

  coming

कानपुर वाला the one from   जूते वालाthe shoe seller/the one with

 Kanpur   shoes

Remember that वाला/वाले/वाली like all postpostions, chage the noun or

verb before them into the oblique case. वाला/वाले/वाली themselves,

however, inflect like normal nouns and adjectives.

When used with verbs, a वाला expression can be the equivalent of the

English expressions “the one who is…..” for example:

 बाज़ार से आने वाला लड़का---

 The boy (who is ) coming from the bazaar………

वाला may or may not be followed by a noun, e.g. लड़का“boy” in the above example. In general, when वाला is followed by a noun, it functions like an adjective, and when it is not followed by a noun, it functions like a noun itself.

वाला expression are also useful for turning any noun into an adjective:

पाँच रुपये वाले जूतेthe five rupee shoes

कानपुर वाला डाक्तर the Kanpur doctor

Note the slightly different usage of वाला with adjectives:

अच्छा वाला/अच्छी वाली the good one  अच्छा वाला लड़का the good boy

नीले वाले/नीली वाली the blue ones  नीली वाली कारें the blue cars

As you can see in the above examples, वाला can replace a noun modified by adjective X, in which case the expression means “the X one(s).” If the noun is stated along with वाला, then the expression has restrictive senes, i.e. “the blue cars” (as opposed to the white cars) or “the good boy” (as opposed to boys in general).

See Snell's Teach Yourself Hindi (2000) Section 10.5 page 130