It’s no, not na, know?

Have you observed that we like to talk a lot? Even people who are quiet, talk, at times, a lot. But there’s something more about talking. Many a time, we just want to ask! Even when we want to tell, we just ask.

I should give an example, you know? See what I did here? Even when I wanted to tell that I should give an example, I converted it into a question by adding ‘you know’.

Have you observed how many times a person says “you know” while they are telling something?

Sometimes, it happens that we look for confirmation from someone. We want people to agree with us. We want people to say yes to what we say. While else would someone from such sentences?

It will rain today, no? We have a test tomorrow, right? You are a member of the college library, no?

These were mere assertive sentences in the start, but we turned them into a question in the end.

Even when we want to tell something that we are very sure the listener has no idea, we ask them if they knew it.

“I brought a hat today, you know?” What do you think should we reply to such a statement or question?

“No, I didn’t know, because I was busy not knowing you brought a hat.” Or “How would I know what I don’t know?” Or “I am not omnipresent, you know?” Or “Why did you tell me if you thought that I already knew?”

Anyway, we can create a lot of questions in reply to ‘you now’, can’t we?

All these words which we add to a sentence which isn’t a question are question tags.

Let’s get back to one example.

It will rain today, no?

How many of the Indians that we know of actually say ‘no’ when we want to add a question tag?

“It will rain today, na?” “You know the formula to solve this, na?” “I have told you, na?” “This is so cool, na?”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Similar to the way British have a kind of influence on us today as well, Indian languages still have an influence on Indian English. Na is not an English word. It’s in Hindi and Marathi but never in English. Using ‘na’ in English is as wrong as unknowingly using ‘na’ in English.

Just because someone uses a particular word doesn’t mean you should you use too.

The right word to use in place of ‘na’ is no. All you have to do is change the vowel from ‘a’ to ‘o’. It sounds easy now, but practically people just don’t change. How would they? There’s a whole big world around them to teach the incorrect usage.

The objective of a language is to convey a message. So you may say that as long as message is conveyed, it won’t matter if you use ‘na’ or ‘no’. I agree. It won’t matter as long as you have an informal conversation with you friends or anyone who isn’t friends. It won’t even matter in a work-space where primary language of communication is Hinglish or sort of English. But if you go out there in the world, say at a big conference, meeting or a multi-national company or in some English speaking country and use the word ‘na’, it would definitely have a bad impression or at least people would wonder, “What’s with the ‘na’ all over the place?”

It would also matter at a place where people are very stringent about language usage. And if your boss happens to be a prescriptivist, then may the Language God bless you!

There are some people who know that we have to use the word which sounds like ‘no’ to add a question, but they don’t know that it’s ‘no’, they think it’s ‘know’.

“It will rain, know?” Funny thing is, one actually won’t understand if they said no or know unless they type it.

Anyway, you can keep on using the language that you use. The language that a person uses gives an impression of the person they are. It’s good to have good language skills, because no matter what you know, you should be able to convey it in the ‘right’ way.

It’s no, not na, know?