“Can I buy medicine without a prescription?” in Hindi: “क्या बिना पर्चे के दवा खरीदी जा सकती है?”

When to use it

Use it at an Indian chemist's shop to check whether a medicine is sold without a doctor's prescription.

“Can I buy medicine without a prescription?” — The sentence in English

In “Can I buy medicine without a prescription?” the auxiliary ‘Can’ comes before the subject ‘I’ to form the question. ‘without’ is a preposition placed before ‘a prescription’, and ‘medicine’ needs no article here because it is uncountable.

Can

auxiliary verbcan · tense: present · modal verb of ability or permission; it opens the question

I

pronounpersonal pronoun, always written with a capital letter

buy

verbbuy · form: base form (infinitive without "to") · main verb after "can"

medicine

noununcountable noun here, used in a general sense

without

prepositionpreposition

a

determinerindefinite article

prescription

nounnoun; a doctor's written order for medicine

“क्या बिना पर्चे के दवा खरीदी जा सकती है?” — The sentence in Hindi

“क्या बिना पर्चे के दवा खरीदी जा सकती है?” opens with ‘क्या’, the yes/no question marker. ‘खरीदी जा सकती है’ is passive (‘can be bought’), so the subject is ‘दवा’ (medicine, feminine), which is why ‘खरीदी’ and ‘सकती’ take feminine endings. ‘बिना … के’ wraps around ‘पर्चे’.

क्या

particlequestion particle that turns the sentence into a yes/no question

बिना

preposition'without'; it works together with के

पर्चे

nounoblique form of पर्चा 'prescription slip'

के

prepositionpostposition completing बिना … के

दवा

nounfeminine noun 'medicine'; it makes खरीदी and सकती feminine

खरीदी

verbखरीदना · form: perfective participle · gender: feminine · voice: passive · खरीदी जा is a passive: 'can be bought'

जा

auxiliary verbजाना · role: passive auxiliary · जाना used to make the passive

सकती

auxiliary verbसकना · gender: feminine · number: singular · 'can', feminine to agree with दवा

है

auxiliary verbहोना · tense: present · number: singular · present tense

English × Hindi: What changes from one language to the other

English asks about ‘I’; the natural Hindi asks a general rule with a passive, without naming who buys. English uses one preposition, ‘without’; Hindi uses ‘बिना’ with ‘के’, and the verb agrees in gender with the medicine.

Example conversation