Nepali Grammar: "Rahecha"

रहेछ

Rahecha....

Ugh, one of those words/grammar points that drove me crazy trying to figure out. I almost never saw it in writing or in my Nepali textbooks, but I heard it all the time. When I finally found a textbook that gave its definition, I still had no idea how to use it myself in regular speech.

Well, I am writing this blog post (to a demographic of, I'm assuming, 1-2 other people on earth) so that no one else has to go through the torture of learning this grammar point the [very] hard way.

First, the simple definition:

Rahanu is a verb which really means "to remain."
But when you convert it to "rahecha," it suddenly takes on a different meaning. The general idea is that of surprise, or acknowledging that you just found out something you didn't know before.

E.g., "Oh, no, I left the lights on all day" + "rahecha" = I didn't realize until just now, I left the lights on!

"You've eaten dinner" + "rahecha" = I see you've already eaten (I was thinking that you hadn't).

There are two different ways to use "rahecha" in this sense.

The first is by far the easier way, and you will probably hear it more often in spoken Nepali.

If the thing you are surprised about is a noun, not a verb, you can just add "rahecha" at the end without any extra steps.

For example, you hear a barking sound and expect to see a dog, but...

It's a cat!

So, in this case, you would say

बिरालो रहेछ!

Biralo rahecha!

"Cat"+"rahecha" = "It's a cat! (I'm surprised it is a cat!)"

Even though it's only two words, this sentence has a lot of meaning, so this is a really simple way to get the point across.

ए, मान्छे रहेछ. रुख जस्तो लग्यो मलाई.

"Eh, manche rahecha! Rukh jasto lagyo malai."

"Oh, it's a person! I thought it was a tree." 

(Imagine it was being said by a near-sighted person, I guess.)

But this only works for nouns like "cat" or "person," etc.

If you want to add "rahecha" to a verb, you have an extra step.

First, is the action you're surprised about happening now/continuously or has it already happened?

For example, take these two sentences:

"Oh, I see it's rained this morning."

"Oh, you can sing very well!"

For the first sentence, you're talking about something that has already happened and finished. 

To add "rahecha" to this sentence and convey a tone of surprise, you have to change the verb to the present perfect/past perfect tense. 

To do this, you have to take the stem of the Nepali verb and change it from "-nu" to "-eko".

The verb in this case is "to rain" = पानी पार्नु  paani paarnu

So we would take the "nu" of the end and replace with "eko" =

पानी पारेको paani paareko

Side note: This conveys the tone that something "has" happened or "had" happened. For example, you could say "I've eaten lunch," which would convey the sense that you are not hungry right now or you don't have to eat again anytime soon. Whereas if you just say "I ate," you could be talking about something that happened this morning or yesterday or 3 years ago - it doesn't really affect the state you are in right now. "I have eaten" is in the present perfect tense - it happened in the past but it is affecting you now.

Now that you have changed the verb tense, you can just add "rahecha" to the end.

पानी पारेको रहेछ.

Paani paareko rahecha.

"It has rained (I didn't know)."

But maybe you want to talk about something that is happening or happens quite frequently or on a regular basis.

Maybe you just found out your favorite cafe also sells books (not just coffee). You could say:

ए, किताब पनि पाउँदो रहेछ.

"Eh, kitaab pani paaundo rahecha."

Oh, books are also available (here).

In this case you would have to change the stem of the verb (always -nu) to "-do". ("Do" as in "dough").

--As with most languages, there are some irregular verbs which will require a little tweaking, but we can get into that in another article.--

हिउँद पार्दो रहेछ.

Hiund paardo rahecha.

It snows (in this place).

In this example, maybe you are talking with a friend about their homeland. You were expecting it to be hot there, but you see in a photo that there is lots of snow. In English you might say, "Oh, it snows there! I didn't know." But in Nepali all you need is this three-word sentence to get the point across.

One last note:

"rahecha" is a three syllable word (ra-he-cha) but in spoken Nepali it is often shortened to two syllables "ray-cha".

Often Nepalis will text in Nepali words using the English alphabet, so you might see "rahecha" spelled as "raicha" or "raixa".