“Can I exchange money here?” in Urdu: “کیا میں یہاں پیسے تبدیل کر سکتا ہوں؟”

When to use it

Use it at a bank, hotel desk or exchange counter to ask whether you can change currency there (women say ‘سکتی ہوں’).

“Can I exchange money here?” — The sentence in English

In “Can I exchange money here?” ‘Can’ moves before ‘I’, ‘money’ is uncountable and singular, and ‘here’ goes last.

Can

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

I

pronounpersonal pronoun, always written with a capital letter

exchange

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

money

noununcountable noun

here

adverbadverb of place

“کیا میں یہاں پیسے تبدیل کر سکتا ہوں؟” — The sentence in Urdu

In “کیا میں یہاں پیسے تبدیل کر سکتا ہوں؟” the verb is the compound ‘تبدیل کرنا’ (to change) plus ‘سکنا’ (can). ‘پیسے’ (money) is plural, as Urdu speakers say it, and ‘سکتا’ is masculine; a woman says ‘سکتی ہوں’.

کیا

particleyes/no question particle

میں

pronounpronoun 'I'

یہاں

adverb'here'

پیسے

nounmasculine plural 'money', always plural in speech

تبدیل

adjective'changed'; تبدیل کرنا = 'to change'

کر

verbکرنا · form: stem · stem of کرنا before سکنا

سکتا

auxiliary verbسکنا · gender: masculine · number: singular · 'can'; a woman says سکتی

ہوں

auxiliary verbہونا · tense: present · person: 1st · with میں

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

English treats ‘money’ as singular, Urdu says ‘پیسے’ in the plural; English puts ‘Can’ first, Urdu puts ‘سکتا ہوں’ last.

Example conversation