When to use it
Use it in a chemist's shop to check whether a medicine is sold over the counter.
The sentence in English (“Can I buy medicine without a prescription?”)
In “Can I buy medicine without a prescription?” ‘Can’ moves before ‘I’, and ‘without’ precedes the noun.
- 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
The sentence in Marathi (“डॉक्टरांच्या चिठ्ठीशिवाय मला औषध विकत घेता येईल का?”)
In “डॉक्टरांच्या चिठ्ठीशिवाय मला औषध विकत घेता येईल का?” ‘शिवाय’ (without) is attached after the noun: ‘चिठ्ठीशिवाय’ (without a prescription). Ability is phrased ‘मला… घेता येईल’, literally ‘will it come to me to take’.
- डॉक्टरांच्या
- noun'doctor' with the respectful possessive -āñcyā
- चिठ्ठीशिवाय
- noun'chiṭṭhī' (note, prescription) + 'śivāy' (without), written together
- मला
- pronoun'to me'; used when saying what one can do
- औषध
- noun'medicine'
- विकत
- adverbvikat gheṇe = buy (take for money)
- घेता
- verbgheṇe · form: participle (-tā) · ghetā yeṇe = to be able to take
- येईल
- auxiliary verbyeṇe · tense: future · person: third · here 'will be possible', like can
- का
- particlequestion particle at the end
What changes from one language to the other (English × Marathi)
English says ‘I can’; Marathi says it ‘comes to me’. English prepositions go before nouns, Marathi postpositions after.
Example conversation
— डॉक्टरांच्या चिठ्ठीशिवाय मला औषध विकत घेता येईल का?
— Can I buy medicine without a prescription?
— हे मिळेल, पण अँटिबायोटिक नाही.
— This one yes, antibiotics no.