Hindi 1/Nouns and Adjectives

Nouns are words that name things boy, house, thought, food - Adjectives are words that qualify nouns, young boy, old house, interesting thought, fresh food.

All nouns in Hindi are divided into one of two gramatical types, called genders. These genders are Masculine and Feminine. The gender is important becacuse nouns often modify other words in the sentence acording to their gender.

The gender of a noun is not always easy to determine. Nouns describing things with natural gender, e.g. people etc are classed by their natural gender - boy is masculine, mother is feminine for example. Nouns describing things with no natural gender are either classified by their ending (if it is ā or ī) otherwise their is no pattern to their gender.

Masculine Nouns

There are two types of masculine nouns:

Type 1

Type 1 masculine nouns end in ā

• लड़का laṛkā (boy)
• कुरता kurtā (a collarless indian shirt)
• खाना khānā (food)

Type 2

Type 2 masculine nouns not ending in ā

• आदमी ādmī (man)
• पानी pānī (water)
• ख़त khat (letter)

Feminine Nouns

There are two types of feminine nouns:

Type 1

Type 1 feminine nouns end in ī

• लड़की laṛkī (girl)
• पत्नी patnī (wife)
• गाड़ी gaṛī (car, train)

Type 2

Type 2 feminine nouns not ending in ī

• माँ mă (mother)
• दाल dāl (lentils)
• उम्र umr (age of something)

Adjectives

Adjectives classify a noun. There are two types of adjective, those ending in ā and those not ending in ā. Adjectives ending in ā change their ending to reflect the noun that they clasify. They are said to agree with their noun. Take for example छोटा choṭā (small):

• छोटा लड़का choṭā laṛkā (small boy)
• छोटी लड़की choṭī laṛkī (small girl)

Or consider अच्छा acchā (good)

• अच्छा आदमी acchā ādmī (good man)
• अच्छी दाल acchī dāl (good lentils)

Adjectives not ending in ā do not change their endings. Consider गरम garm:

• गरम पानी garm pānī (hot water)
• गरम दाल garm dāl (hot lentils)