Learn about Hindi grammar
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| Hi! |
| Welcome to Introduction to Hindi. |
| My name is Alisha and I'm joined by... |
| Hi everyone! I'm Venus. |
| In this lesson, you'll learn the basics of Hindi grammar. |
| Articles, Verbs and Genders |
| Did you know that Hindi doesn't use articles? |
| Really? That means you don't have to worry about where to put "a" and where to add "an" and where to use "the?" |
| Yes, doesn't that make things easier? |
| It definitely does! What about gender? How is it indicated in Hindi? |
| Firstly, there is no "he" or "she" in Hindi. You can use the same pronoun for both genders. |
| Great! |
| But the verbs do change depending on the gender of the person speaking and the gender of the person you are speaking to. |
| Ooh! That is quite complicated. |
| Not really. It is usually quite simple. If a verb uses ii (ई) at the end, it means it is feminine. But if it uses an aa (आ) at the end, it means it is masculine. We will go through a few examples later in this lesson to find out just how easy it is. |
| Also, in Hindi, there is no neutral gender. Every object is either masculine or feminine. |
| Yes, so an "auto rickshaw" is masculine and a "bus" is feminine. |
| But there isn't a need to worry about getting the gender of all objects correct in the beginning. This is something you will catch on to as you go on learning Hindi. How about we look at an example of verbs and how they change based on gender? Let's begin with the verb "to do". |
| Sure. In Hindi, "to do" is karaNa (करना). If you are female, you would say karaTii (करती) and if you are a male, you would say karaTaa (करता). |
| So, the last vowel changes. It is ii (इ) for females and aa (आ) for males. |
| Yes. The same goes when you address someone. If they are female, use ii (ई) at the end of the verb and if they are male, use aa (आ) at the end. |
| Okay, so we don't have to worry about articles, we don't have to worry about pronouns being gender-based, but we have to be concerned about verbs being based on gender? |
| Yes, that's right. |
| How about we go on and take a look at some personal pronouns now? |
| Personal Pronouns in Hindi |
| In Hindi, the first person singular pronoun is maiṅ (मैं). |
| And it doesn't matter whether you are a female or male, you can use the same pronoun? |
| Yes. The first person plural pronoun is ham (हम) |
| While there is only one first person singular pronoun in Hindi, there are three second person singular pronouns. Right? |
| Yes, they are Tuu (तू), Tum (तुम) and aap (आप) |
| Tuu (तू) is used in a very informal way, something you will use with a very close friend. |
| Tum (तुम) is also informal, but not as much as Tuu (तू). It is something you may want to use with a friend, a close colleague, your kids, your siblings, or even your spouse. |
| But aap (आप) is the formal form of address. It is something that you would like to use at your office, while addressing your parents, or strangers, or your elders. |
| The interesting thing is that you can use Tum (तुम) and aap (आप) as second person plural too. |
| But generally a word like "all" or "people" is added to Tum (तुम) and aap (आप) to make second person plural. |
| So, you could say Tum Log (तुम लोग) or aap Log (आप लोग) where Log (लोग) means "people". Or you could say Tum Sab (तुम सब) or aap Sab (आप सब) where Sab (सब) means "all". |
| Good, so we learned two more words here: for "people" and "all". |
| Yes. Log (लोग) means "people" and Sab (सब) means "all". |
| Let's check the third person singular now. For "he / she/ it / this", we use yah (यह) and for "he / she / it / that", we use vah (वह). The plural will be ye (ये) for "these" and ve (वे) for "those". |
| So, how about we try and make some sentences now? |
| The Hindi Verb "To Be". |
| Sure we can. But before we actually go on to forming sentences, we will need to know a little more about the various forms of the verb "to be". |
| Of course, "to be" is an important verb not only in Hindi but also in English. Without knowing about how to use it, it is very difficult to form sentences. Imagine having no "am", "are", "were", "was", "have" or "has" in English. There would be no sentences! So, what is "to be" in Hindi? |
| It is honaa (होना). |
| How would we say "I am" in Hindi? |
| For "I am", honaa (होना) changes to huun (हूँ), main huun (मैं हूँ). |
| "We are" becomes ham hain (हम हैं), where honaa (होना) changes to hain (हैं). |
| With Tuu (तू), you use hai (है), with Tum (तुम) you use ho (हो), and with aap (आप) you use hain (हैं). |
| That means the "to be" form is the same for plural and for respectful address. |
| Yes, it is hain (हैं). |
| Does it change depending on whether a man speaks or a woman? |
| No, it doesn't. We have three versions of honaa (होना) and these are: |
| huun (हूँ), hai (है), and hain (हैं). |
| Great! So now we can make a sentence. |
| Definitely! |
| How to Form Sentences in Hindi |
| How would you say "I am Alisha"? |
| That would be main Alisha huun (मैं अलीशा हूँ). |
| So, the order of words is "I Alisha am", or pronoun-noun-verb. |
| That means, unlike English, the noun comes before the verb in Hindi. |
| Yes, indeed. |
| Let's try out a few more sentences. How about "I am good"? How would we say that in Hindi? |
| main acchaa huun (मैं अच्छा हूँ) if you are a male. |
| main acchii huun (मैं अच्छी हूँ) if you are a female. |
| Did you notice how for males the word "good" becomes acchaa and for females it becomes acchii? |
| Yes, indeed. What about the plural version of the Hindi word for "good"? |
| That would be acche (अच्छे). This would also be used if you are using a respectful address for a male. |
| aap acche hain. (आप अच्छे हैं।) |
| Generally, the respectful form when addressing males is the same as the plural version. |
| That makes things quite simple. But "good" is an adjective. Does that mean that all adjectives also change depending on the gender? |
| Not always, but sometimes they do. You will pick this up as you practice the language more and more. |
| Okay, but what about past tense? |
| "Was" becomes THaa (था) or THe (थे) or Thii (थी). |
| So, how would you say "How are you"? |
| aap kaiSe hain (आप कैसे हैं) or aap kaiSii hain (आप कैसी हैं). |
| And how would you answer that? |
| main acchaa huun (मैं अच्छा हूँ) if you are a male or main acchii huun (मैं अच्छी हूँ) if you are a female. |
| Wow! We learned a lot about Hindi grammar today! Let's recap what we've learned in this lesson. |
| Summary |
| In this lesson, we learned that there are no articles in Hindi. The pronouns are not gender-based. But the verbs are never neutral, they are always masculine or feminine. We also learned that you can use three variations of the word "you" depending on whether you want to use a formal or informal and a little more informal version. We also learned how the verb "to be" changes depending on whether the sentence is singular, plural, formal or informal. And of course, we also learned how to say "How are you?" and how to answer this very important question. |
| We just learned the basics of Hindi Grammar. In the next lesson we will learn the basics of Hindi writing. |
| See you in the next lesson. Bye~! |
| DHaNyavaaD and namaSTe! |
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