When to use it
Use it to ask whether guests, family or a group reached their destination last night.
The sentence in English: “Did they arrive last night?”
In “Did they arrive last night?” ‘Did’ carries the past, so ‘arrive’ stays in its base form. ‘last night’ uses ‘last’ for the night before today.
- Did
- auxiliary verbdo · tense: past · auxiliary that makes a question in the past
- they
- pronounpersonal pronoun, third person plural
- arrive
- verbarrive · form: base form (infinitive without "to") · after "did" the verb stays in its base form
- last
- adjectiveadjective; "last night" means the night before today
- night
- nounnoun
The sentence in Bangla: “তারা কি কাল রাতে পৌঁছেছে?”
In “তারা কি কাল রাতে পৌঁছেছে?” the verb ‘পৌঁছেছে’ (have arrived) is a present perfect, the natural Bengali choice here. Bengali verbs do not change for number: ‘সে পৌঁছেছে’ and ‘তারা পৌঁছেছে’ use the same form. ‘কাল রাতে’ means ‘last night’ because the verb is past.
- তারা
- pronounpronoun 'they'
- কি
- particlequestion particle
- কাল
- adverbhere 'yesterday', made clear by the past verb
- রাতে
- noun'night' + -এ; কাল রাতে = 'last night'
- পৌঁছেছে
- verbপৌঁছানো · tense: present perfect · person: 3rd · 'has arrived'; Bengali verbs do not change for number
What changes from one language to the other: English × Bangla
English uses the simple past with ‘Did’; Bengali uses the present perfect. Bengali ‘কাল’ covers both ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’, and the verb tense decides.
Example conversation
— তারা কি কাল রাতে পৌঁছেছে?
— Did they arrive last night?
— হ্যাঁ, রাত এগারোটার দিকে।
— Yes, around eleven o'clock.