The two sentence frames that carry almost everything: [body part] में दर्द है for localised pain, and मुझे [condition] है for whole-body conditions. So सिर में दर्द है for a headache but मुझे बुख़ार है for a fever. Mixing them produces sentences that are understood but sound wrong.

Note that Indians say शुगर for diabetes and बीपी for blood pressure, and both are used as nouns for the condition itself — मुझे शुगर है means I am diabetic. These English borrowings are more common than the formal Hindi terms मधुमेह and रक्तचाप, which appear in writing but rarely in speech.

दस्त and stomach trouble generally are worth knowing for practical reasons if you are travelling, along with पेट ख़राब है, the universal phrase for digestive upset.

Doctors will generally use English terms for organs, but nursing staff, family members and patients use Hindi. दिल is worth noting because it also means heart in the emotional sense, exactly as in English, and the medical term हृदय is used in formal contexts. जिगर similarly doubles as a poetic word for courage or a beloved person.

If you have a chronic condition, learn its Hindi name and carry it written down. Emergency staff, ward attendants and family members translating for you will often not recognise the English term, and a written note listing your condition, blood group, allergies and current medication in both languages removes a genuine risk at the point where you are least able to explain yourself.

Indian pharmacies dispense a great deal without prescription, which is convenient and genuinely risky. Two questions are worth asking every time: यह किस लिए है? — what is this for — and whether it is an antibiotic. Antibiotic overuse is a serious public health problem in India, and a chemist recommending one for a viral cold is common.

Note that गोली means both tablet and bullet, which produces occasional confusion in other contexts but never at a chemist.

You will encounter these alongside conventional medicine rather than instead of it.

Many Indian families use conventional medicine and traditional remedies simultaneously without seeing a contradiction, and a relative will suggest a देसी इलाज alongside your prescription. काढ़ा — a boiled herbal preparation for colds — became particularly widespread during the pandemic. Declining politely causes no offence, but dismissing it outright may.

बुख़ार carries the raspy nukta kh, commonly softened. खाँसी is nasalised with an aspirated kh. फेफड़े contains the flapped ड़. हड्डी doubles the retroflex ḍ. And ज़ुकाम opens with a nukta z. Say these slowly if you are unwell, since clarity matters far more than accent when you are trying to describe a symptom.

• Saying मुझे सिर दर्द है instead of सिर में दर्द है.
• Using formal terms like मधुमेह that patients never say.
• Accepting antibiotics from a chemist without asking what they are for.
• Not mentioning existing medication or allergies unprompted.
• Dismissing a family member’s suggested home remedy outright.

1. Describe five symptoms using the two sentence frames correctly.
2. Write out your allergies and medications in Hindi and keep it on your phone.
3. Practise asking what a medicine is for.
4. Learn the Hindi for five organs and five common conditions.
5. Role-play a pharmacy visit including dosage instructions.