That’s quite straight forward yeah? But it’s not always that easy! Let me show you a few different examples, read through them slowly and see if you can notice a pattern…
मेरी किताब meree kitaab - My Book
उसके आलू uske aloo - His Potatoes
तुम्हारी बहन tumhaaree bahan - Your Sister
हमारे समोसे hamaare samose - Our Samosas
This is why we say मेरा घर meraa ghar - My House because घर ghar - House is a Masculine word but we say मेरी किताब meree kitaab - My Book; because किताब kitaab - Book is a Feminine word! Can you see the difference? Do you understand why there is this difference? So let’s look at this in a bit more detail…
In the Singular Masculine Case:
मेरा घर meraa ghar - My House
आपका बेटा aapkaa betaa - Your Son
For the Plural Masculine Case:
This is when the thing someone is 'owning’ is Masculine and there’s more than one of them! In this case we drop the आ -aa from the end of the Possessive Pronoun and add ए -e. Remember the noun being possessed must also be in its plural case. This is like the 'His Potatoes’ and 'Our Samosas’ example from above! Other examples are…
उनके केले unke kele - Their Bananas
मेरे कुत्ते mere kutte - My Dogs
For the Singular and Plural Feminine Case:
This is when the thing someone is Feminine! In this case, you drop the आ -aa from the end of the Possessive Pronoun and add ई-ee. This is the same in both the Singular and Plural case! This is just like in the 'My Book’ and 'Your Sister’ examples above! We can also say…
Can you follow those examples? The Possessive Pronouns work in a very similar way to English ones! So are you ready to see the full list of Hindi Possessive Pronouns? अच्छा acchaa - great! Deep breathe in, here goes…
First Person Singular
मेरा meraa My
First Person Plural
हमारा hamaaraa Our
Second Person Singular
तेरा teraa Your (Very Informal)
Second Person Plural
आपका aapkaa Your (Formal)
तुम्हारा tumhaaraa Your (Informal)
Third Person Singular
इसका iskaa His / Her / Its (Near)
उसका uskaa His / Her / Its (Far)
Third Person Plural
इनका inkaa Their (Near) or His / Her (Formal)
उनका unkaa Their (Far) or His / Her (Formal)
The difference between इसका iskaa and उसका uskaa is exactly the same as the difference between यह yeh and वह voh Similarly the difference between इनका inkaa and उनका unkaa is the same as the difference between ये ye and वे ve!
उनका केला unkaa kelaa - Their Banana
तुम्हारा खाना गर्म है tumhaaraa khaanaa garm hai - Your food is hot
हमारा बग़ीचा बड़ा है hamaaraa bageecaa baraa hai - Our Garden is big
Phew! How was there? There’s a lot to remember don’t you think? Well actually there’s just three (and a bit) rules you really need to know -
हूँ hoon means 'am’. So whenever you want to say 'I am’ you’ll say मैं हूँ main hoon.
है hai means 'is’. So whenever you want to say 'is’ you’ll say है hai
हैं hain means 'are’. So whenever you want to say 'are’ you’ll say हैं hain.
There’s two exceptions to this though; We use हो ho for तुम tum and we use है hai for तू too. It can be tricky to remember I know so keep practicing and you’ll get there!
Now do you think you’re ready for a few examples? Before we start there’s one thing you need to know - in Hindi the always verb comes at the end of the sentence! This means we literally say “I Nita am” or “this house is”. This can be super confusing to new learners so be sure to go through the examples slowly!
मैं निता हूँ main neetaa hoon - I am Nita
Can you see what’s happened here? If you don’t know, निता nitaa is a common girls name in india. Remember we are literally saying “I Nita am”. Ready for another example?
Hindi hasonly4 different rules and it’s super easy to tell which rule we apply, so if you’ve mastered English plurals you can master Hindi ones!
Masculine Nouns
Firstly we’re going to break down every single Masculine Noun into two groups, those that end with the vowel आ aa and those that end with anything else! We’re going to call these Type 1 and Type 2. Each different type has a different rule, so let’s get straight to it!
Type 1 Masculine Nouns (Those that end with आ aa)
For these nouns, to make them plural, we simply drop the आ aa from the end of the word and instead add an ए e. So let’s see a few examples…
कुत्ता kuttaa - ‘dog’ is कुत्ते kutte - 'dogs’
Can you see what we’ve done here? Yeah see, just like I said above - we simply drop the drop the आ aa from the end of the word and add an ए e! Here’s another example;
The plural of the word दरवाज़ा darvaazaa - 'door’ is दरवाज़े darvaaze - 'doors’. Can you see the rule being applied here? अच्छा acchaa - great! Ready for Type 2 now?
Type 2 Masculine Nouns (Those that end with anything else)
These are probably the easiest words ever to make plural! Want to know why? It’s because they don’t change at all! There’s nothing different! So for example…
The plural of the word अख़बार akhbaar - 'newspaper’ doesn’t change at all, it’s still अख़बार akhbaar - 'newspapers’! Easy hey?
Now you might turn round to me and say “but wait hang on, if these words are the same in singular and plural then how do we know the difference - how do we know if someone’s talking about one newspaper or many?”. The answer to that is that the grammar of the Hindi sentence will usually tell you, but we’ll learn more about that later!
Feminine Nouns
Again, just like with Masculine nouns, we’re going to break up Feminine nouns into two separate groups. So let’s get to it!
Type 1 Feminine Nouns (Those that end with ई ee)
For these nouns we simply drop the ई ee from the end of the word and add इयाँ iyaan instead! Let’s see an example…
The plural of the word मछली machlee - 'fish’ is मछलियाँ machliyaan - 'fish’ ('fishes’). Can you see what we’ve done? Ready for another example?
The plural of the word सब्ज़ी sabzee - 'vegetable’ is सब्ज़ियाँ sabziyaan - 'vegetables’. Can you see the same rule here again? Great! Ready to move on to the final group of nouns? Here goes…
Type 2 Feminine Nouns (Those that end with anything else)
In this case we simply add एँ en to the end of the word - easy! So for example…
मेज़ mez - 'table’ is मेज़ें mezen - 'tables’
Can you see what we’ve done here? Yeah that’s right, all we’ve done is add एँ en to the end! One more example…
The plural of आग aag - 'fire’ is आगें aagen - 'fires’
Phew! That’s everything! That’s all 4 rules covered. I know it’s been quite long so well done if you’ve made it all the way to the end. Can you remember all the rules? Here’s a quick easy to read summary for you…
Masculine Nouns
If the noun ends with आ aa then drop the आ aa and add ए e.
If not then the word doesn’t change at all!
Feminine Nouns
If the noun ends with ई ee then drop the ई ee and add इयाँ iyaan.
If not then simply add एँ en to the end!
Do you think you can remember them all? Well try it, here’s a little quiz - can you convert each of these words into their plural form? Here’s a tip, if you get stuck look at the summary just above and figure out what rule you need to apply first!
So go on, give it a go in the comments section just below! Don’t forget if you have any questions at all you can leave them in the comments section too and I’ll be sure to help!
