Learning Punjabi for your partner's family

By the Ladoo team · Published October 15, 2026 · Updated October 15, 2026

Four sentences of Punjabi at the first dinner will do more than a year of nodding along. Say the greeting right, call everyone the right thing, and learn to turn down food. Your partner's mother will be telling her sisters you speak Punjabi by the end of the night.

Start with the greeting

Ask your partner which greeting their parents use, because it depends on the family. In Sikh families it is ਸਤਿ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਅਕਾਲ (sat sri akal), said with your hands together. In Muslim families it is السلام علیکم (assalam-o-alaikum). Many Hindu Punjabi families say namaste, and plenty say sat sri akal too.

With elders, a lot of families also say ਪੈਰੀਂ ਪੈਣਾ (pairi paina), "I touch your feet," and some will expect you to bend and actually touch them. Watch what your partner does with their grandparents and copy it. Then add ji to everything: ਹਾਂ ਜੀ (haan ji) for yes, ਨਹੀਂ ਜੀ (nahin ji) for no. Our greetings page has audio for all of them.

Use tusi with every elder

Punjabi has a polite "you," ਤੁਸੀਂ (tusi), and a close one, ਤੂੰ (tu). Use tusi with your partner's parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, every time. The verbs change with it, so "sit" is baitho, not baith. The full rules are in tusi or tu.

The in-law words

Punjabi has a separate word for nearly every in-law, and which word you use depends on whether you are the husband or the wife. You will hear these about yourself and about everyone else, so learn to recognize them.

• ਸੱਸ (sass) is mother-in-law and ਸਹੁਰਾ (sauhra) is father-in-law. Your in-laws' house is ਸਹੁਰੇ (sauhre).
• ਨੂੰਹ (nooh) is daughter-in-law and ਜਵਾਈ (jawai) is son-in-law. Every auntie at the wedding will introduce you as one of these.
• If you marry a man, his older brother is ਜੇਠ (jeth), his younger brother is ਦਿਓਰ (dior), and his sister is ਨਣਦ (nanad).
• If you marry a woman, her brother is ਸਾਲਾ (saala) and her sister is ਸਾਲੀ (saali). Saala is also a common insult, so it gets a laugh at every wedding.

You don't call your in-laws by these words to their faces. Most people say mummy ji and papa ji to their partner's parents. For everyone else, ask your partner what they call each person and use the same word with ji on the end. The rest of the family tree is on our family words page.

Learn to turn down food

You will be fed. ਹੋਰ ਲਓ (hor lao) means "take more," and you will hear it after every bite. ਬੱਸ ਜੀ (bas ji) means "that's enough, thank you." It will not work the first time. Say it again with a hand over your plate. By the third time, you have usually already been served, and the correct move is to eat it. The food words page has the rest of the kitchen.

The wedding words

If there is a wedding coming, these come up all week.

• ਵਿਆਹ (viah) is the wedding itself.
• ਸ਼ਗਨ (shagan) is the gift money in an envelope, and the small ceremonies where it changes hands.
• ਮਿਲਣੀ (milni) is when the men of the two families meet in pairs and exchange garlands.
• ਜਾਗੋ (jaggo) is the night before, when the women dance through the street with a pot of lit lamps on someone's head.
• ਡੋਲੀ (doli) is when the bride leaves her parents' home. Everybody cries, including the uncles.

How long it takes

Ten minutes a day gets most people through greetings, family words, and basic small talk in two to three months. That is enough for a wedding. Start with speaking, and learn to read Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi alongside it, whichever one the family writes. Reading is how you stop mispronouncing everyone's names. How long it takes to learn Punjabi has the full timeline.

One more thing. The cousins will offer to teach you some words. Ask your partner what they mean before you try them at dinner.