While the basic translation of words was pretty straightforward, what struck me was the various word-order sentence structures in Hindi, English, and Tagalog. English, of course, starts with the subject; and the word that begins the sentence is usually regarded as most important (e.g. "I am going to the store.")
In Hindi, this structure is pretty much turned on its head: "Store to I am going." (Dukan ko may ja rahathee oo) The last word (always the verb) is the most important aspect of the sentence. As Ali says: "Hindi speakers don't let you drift away while they speak. You have to wait until the very end to hear the whole reason for the sentence."
Tagalog is somewhere in between: "Going I to the store" (Papunta ako sa store).
What's fascinating to me is what words are given most importance in each of the various languages, and how this relates with culture itself. In America, it's all about the person, the subject; active voice is always preferable. In Hindi, sentence structures are much more passive; commands often take the form: "Please ensure a car will come" (without directly asking the person to call for a car himself). Tagalog values actions themselves; it appears less important who's actually doing them.
Another aspect of language I find fascinating is the long list of English words and phrases that simply don't exist in other languages. There's no "I'm sorry" in Tagalog. In Hindi, one could write an entire book about words that don't appear in the language: "excited" or "weekend" to start with.
More existentially, no one "owns" anything in Hindi; instead, it is a version of "with me". Gurus point to this impermanence as one of the roots of spirituality -- everything comes and goes -- it's just "with us" in the moment.
Almost comically, there is also no Hindi word for "privacy." From the types of questions I am constantly inundated with (Are you married? How much money do you make? How much did you buy that for?), I didn't have to learn that in a textbook!
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