Hindi Lessons/Lesson 4

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

Lesson 4: Genders in Hindi. Hindi Verbs - Part 1.

Unlike many European language, that have 3 genders or unlike other (e.g. English), which don't have any genders, Hindi has just two - masculine and feminine. There isn't really any reliable rule of what types of words are masculine and what feminine. However you can easily get the gender of a word by looking at it's ending. Most hindi words end in a vowel! If a word ends in a it is masculine. If a word ends in i (actually long i - ee) it is feminine. There are of course words ending in consonants or other vowels. They're not much, and their gender cannot unfortunately be predicted from their endings. So, you have to learn their gender. When we learn the adjectives, how to conjugate verbs etc, you'll see that those -a and -i ending are very important! So, please remember that well:

   -a (ा)   -  general mark of masculine words (singular!) - nouns, adjectives, verbs
   -i (ी)   -  general mark of feminine words (even both - singular and plural) - nouns, adjectives, verbs

There come even better news. Many Hindi masculine words (ending in -a of course:) can be easily turned into feminine ones by simply replacing the -a ending with -i! Let's show you some example to clear all what I said up:

  लडका (ladka) = boy,        लडकी (ladki) = girl    (Many hindi speakers would pronounce the 'd' in lardka/ladki as "R", so don't wonder if you see somebody write in irc-chats "larka" or "larki"...)
  बिल्ला (billa) = tomcat,        बिल्ली (billi) = cat, pussycat

Masculine Words, ending in -a:

कमरा (kamra) = room केला (kela) = banana तारा (tara) = star हवा (hava) = wind

Feminine Words ending in -i (-ee):

पानी (pani) = water चीनी (chini) = sugar पक्षी (pakshi) = bird

Words ending in consonant:

डोस्त (dost) = friend (Masculine) किताब (kitab) = book (Feminine) औरत (aurat) = woman (Feminine :-)

Words ending in a vowel different from -a or -i:

गुरु (guru) = teacher

To the general rule of the -a and -i ending there exist some exceptions, that is, there exist some masculine words, which end in -i. Such word is for example the word for "man" (and what more masculine than that, lol) - admi:

आदमि (aadmi) = man

. Verbs in Hindi. General Information.

Every hindi verb ends in -na! Remember this! That's the main form of the verb, i.e. the infinitive.

-ना (-na) is the verb ending in the infinitive form of all verbs in Hindi

Some verbs:

खाना (khana) = to eat पीना (pina) = to drink जाना (jana) = to go आना (aana) = to come करना (karna) = to do (remember that verb, it's used in many other "compound" verb forms...) देना (dena) = to give लेना (lena) = to take लिखना (likhna) = to write पढना (padhna) = to read समझना (samajhna) = to understand समझाना (samjhaana) = to explain (i.e. to make someone understand) सीखना (sikhna) = to learn

To get the root of the verb you have to remove the -na ending. Once you've done that, you can conjugate the verbs. You remember the rule about words ending in -a/-i, right? So here is the moment to talk about plural. In plurar the masculine -a ending becomes -e and the feminine -i ending remains -i (or becomes -i~). So here it is once more, specially for you:

   -a (ा)   -  general mark of masculine words (singular!) - MASC. SG.
   -e (े)   -  general mark of masculine words (plural!) - MASC. PL.
   -i (ी)   -  general mark of feminine words (even both - singular and plural) - FEM. SG. and FEM. PL. (sometimes for pl - -in /-i~/ though!)

Now back to verbs:

Add "ता" (ta) to verb-root for masculine singular and "ते" (te) for masculine plurar. Add "ती" (ti) for feminine singular and plurar.

Examples:

खाता (khata) = eat पीता (pita) = drink etc... etc... *Note that those are conjugated verbs, but not ready to use, i.e. you cannot say "Mai~ khata", you need to use the copula "to be", so please be a bit patient, and wait until i've explained the most important verb in Hindi, the verb "to be":

. The verb "TO BE" (Hona - होना)

मैं हुं (mai~ hu~) = I am

तु है (tu hai) = You (intimate) are

तुम हो (tum ho) = You are

वह है (voh hai) = He/She/It/That is

हम हैं (ham hai~) = We are

आप हैं (aap hai~) = You are

वे हैं (ve hai~) = They are

Let's give you a pattern:

Verb root + TA / TE / TI + Conjugated corresponding form of "Hona" (to be) = Present Imperfect Tense

Some examples:

NB: Hindi does not use articles

मैं खाता हुं. (mai~ khata hu~) = I eat.

लडका खाता है. (larka khata hai) = The (A) boy eats.

लडकी खाती है. (ladki khati hai) = The (A) girl eats.

आप पीते हैं. (aap pite hai~) = You (polite sg) eat OR You (plural) eat.

मैं पानी पीता हुं. (mai~ pani pita hu~) = I drink water.

तुम पानी पीते हो. (tum pani pite ho) = You drink water. NB: "tum" is the most used word for "you" and is actually plural! So whenever you use it, conjugate as plural!

Here another, somewhat "funny" example:

मैं सिगरेट पीता हुं. (mai~ sigaret pita hu~). I smoke a cigarette... The literal meaning of the sentence is "I drink a cigarette.", but every language has its oddities and peculiarities

I think I better stop now. It's enough material for one lesson. More about other verb tenses you'll learn in the next lesson(s). Please do revise the whole lesson again and make sure you know the grammar well before continue to next lesson.