Hindi Lessons/Lesson 3

Lesson 3: Pronouns.

First, a basic table of the Hindi personal pronouns, then some explanation.

Personal pronouns

SINGULAR		PLURAL
(हिंदी) Hindi	English	(हिंदी) Hindi	English
मैं (main, mai~)	I	हम (ham)	We
तु (tu)	You (intimate)	तुम (tum)	You (Informal)
		आप (aap)	You (Formal)
यह (yah/yeh)	He (close)/She(close)/It (close)/This	ये (ye)	They (close)/These
वह (vah/voh)	He (far)/She (far)/It (far)/That	वे (ve)	They (far)/Those

तु (tu) is used only for very close person, e.g. one's girlfriend/boyfriend. तुम (tum) is probably the most used word for "you" (singular) in Hindi. It can be used with everybody, unless one wants to be polite, in which case one says "aap" (आप). NB. When using "aap" (आप) or "tum" (तुम) conjugate the verb for plural. Well, you don't know how to conjugate at this point, but do remember this rule! When meeting someone for the first time, politeness is appropriate, so it is better to use "aap" for "you."

Next, the demonstrative pronouns:

• यह = This ( yeh / yah )
• वह = That ( woh / wah )

• ये = These ( ye )
• वे = Those ( ve )

And, the possesive pronouns:

possesive pronouns

SINGULAR		PLURAL
(हिंदी) Hindi	English	(हिंदी) Hindi	English
मेरा (mera)	My	हमारा (hamara)	Our
आपका (aapka)	Your
तुम्हारा (tumhara - /tum/)	Your	उनका (unka)	Their
उसका (uska)	His/Hers

So, let's build a Hindi sentence.

• है = is ( hai )

• मेरा नाम Peter है = My name is Peter. (Mera naam Peter hai. नाम (naam) means "name").

NB: The verb in Hindi is always placed at the end of the sentence, a feature which many Asian languages share. (Hindi is SOV, i.e Subject-Object-Verb, language). Thus, for "My name is Peter" we say, "My name Peter is." More examples:

• उसका नाम हसिनी है. = her name is Hasini. (Uska naam Hasini hai.)
• यह पानी है. = This is water. (Yah pani hai.)
• यह घर है. = This is a house. (Yeh ghar hai.)

That's enough material for this lesson I think. The next lesson will address genders and verbs.