Welcome to Lesson 12!

In this lesson, you will learn about nouns.

Examples of Hindi Nouns

Here is a noun: लड़का (“boy”).

Here’s another example: लड़के. Can you guess what it means?

It means “boys”. What changed? The ending on the word changed from -आ to -ए. When we talk about one boy, we use लड़का. When we talk about more than one boy, we use लड़के. In other words, लड़का is singular, and लड़के is plural.

Here’s another word: लड़की. Can you guess what it means?

It means “girl”. What is different? The ending is -ई instead of -आ.

Here’s another word: लड़कियां. Can you guess what this word means?

It means “girls”. What happened this time? The ending changed to -इयां.

Gender of Hindi Nouns

लड़का is a masculine noun and लड़की is a feminine noun. Of course! But, in fact, all nouns are either masculine or feminine.

If you’re not used to grammatical gender, then you might be thinking “how can a word have a gender”? Don’t get confused! Grammatical genders are just categories. If it helps, think of “category A” and “category B” nouns instead of “masculine” and “feminine” nouns.

Then why are they called “masculine” and “feminine”? Well, words that refer to natural gender usually belong to their respective grammatical gender. For instance, राजा (“king”) is a masculine noun, and रानी (“queen”) is a feminine noun. So, words that follow similar patterns are called “masculine” or “feminine”.

However, in general, the grammatical gender is arbitrary. For instance, the word मर्दानगी (“manliness”) is feminine, and the word दाढ़ी (“beard”) is feminine. These examples show that the gender can be arbitrary (i.e. not necessarily related to natural gender).

More Examples

Here’s another word: बहिन. It is also spelled बहन. Regardless, it is almost always pronounced as “behen”. It means “sister”. It doesn’t end in -ई like लड़की did. Many feminine nouns end in -ई, but not all. Well, what if we want to say “sisters”? We say बहिनें. What happened? The ending -एं was added to the end.

Here’s another word: शब्द. It means “word” and it is masculine. What if we want to say “words”? We say “शब्द”. So, its form is the same, whether it is singular or plural.

Here’s another word: आदमी. It means “man” (i.e. “male person”, not “human”). This word ends in -ई. It’s still a masculine noun, though. This shows that a word isn’t necessarily feminine just because it ends in ई.

What if we want to say “men”? We say “आदमी”. So it is the same in the singular and plural, just like शब्द.

Here’s another word: माता. It means “mother”. It is feminine. This shows that a word isn’t necessarily masculine just because it ends in -आ. In fact, a lot of Sanskrit words that are feminine end in -आ.

What if we want to say “mothers”? We say माताएं. So, it has the same pattern as बहिन.

Here’s yet another word: चिड़िया. It means “bird”. Its plural form is “चिड़ियां”. So, we see another pattern. Some feminine nouns end in -इया and their plural form ends in -इयां. In other words, they are nasalized. A few feminine nouns end in -इ too, such as शक्ति (“power”), and their plural form also end in -इयां.

Here’s another example: झाड़ू (“broom”). It’s feminine. Its plural form is झाड़ुएं. Notice how the final ऊ got shortened to उ. All feminine nouns that end in -ऊ shorten the vowel in their plural form.

Some words are used in both genders and the gender depends on the context.

What if we want to talk about a group of both male and female students? The masculine gender is used for mixed groups. This is important when you use adjectives with a mixed noun. But, that’s in a future lesson!

Not every noun has a plural form. This is true in English too. We don’t say “mails”, for instance. We just say “mail”. We’ll talk about this again in another lesson.

Okay, here are some more examples: महिला / महिलाऐं (“lady” / “ladies”),  केला / केले (“banana” / “bananas”), घर / घर (“house” / “houses”), साड़ी / साड़ियां (“sari”, “saris”).

Remember, you can always ask questions!

Review

Now you’ve seen every pattern. Let’s review what you’ve learned:

• There are two patterns of masculine nouns:
  • Those that end in -आ in their singular form, and end in -ए in their plural form.
  • Those that have the same form whether singular or plural
• There are two patterns of feminine nouns:
  • Those that end in -ई  in their singular form, and end in -इयां in their plural form
  • Those that can have any ending in their singular form, but add -एं in their plural form
• Some feminine nouns end in -इया or इ and also have the plural form -इयां.
• All nouns have a gender, either masculine or feminine. Sometimes they are classified for a reason, but usually this is totally arbitrary.
• You have to learn the gender of every word. If you have to guess, words that end in -ई are often feminine, and words that end in -आ are often masculine, but this is not always true.
• If a feminine noun ends in -ऊ, the final vowel shortens to -उ in the plural form.
• Some personal nouns like छात्र can be used for either gender.
• For mixed genders, a noun is considered masculine.

Exercises

Post your answers as a comment below.

What is the plural form of each of these words? The gender is listed beside the word (m. = masculine, f. = feminine).

1. गाड़ी f. “car/cart”
   
2. दिल m. “heart”
3. कपड़ा m. “cloth” (in plural, “cloths” or “clothes/clothing”)
4. गधा m. “donkey/ass” (can be used as an insult, as in English)
5. चींटी f. “ant”
6. भाषा f. “language”
7. आशा f. “hope”
8. ख़ुशी f. “happiness” (“happinesses” is used in Hindi)
9. हाथ m. “hand”
10. शक्ति f. “power”
11. बुढ़िया f. “old woman”
12. बहू f. “daughter-in-law”
13. किताब f. “book”
14. सवाल m. “question”
15. जवाब m. “answer”
16. प्रश्न m. “question”
17. उत्तर m. “answer”
18. विदेशी m./f. “foreigner”
19. परीक्षा f. “examination”
20. कहानी f. “story”
21. मिठाई f. “sweets / candy”
22. कुर्सी f. “chair”
23. चीज़ f. “thing”
24. बात f. “matter / thing / saying”
25. वस्तु f. “thing”
26. जूता m. “shoe”
27. बेटा m. “son”
28. बेटी f. “daughter”
29. सहेली f. “girl’s female friend”
30. दरवाज़ा m. “door”

Further Reading

I discuss nouns in other lessons too. If you’d like to read some of the grammar articles on this site, you can read the articles about nouns, case, and gender.