The verb that carries gender
🎯 Speak in the present about yourself and others, correctly for a boy or a girl.
🗣️ Say these out loud
- मैं जाता हूँ / मैं जाती हूँ — main jaata hoon / jaati hoon 🔊 main JAA-ta hoon / JAA-tee hoon I go. (said by a male / by a female) The verb itself tells the listener whether a man or a woman is speaking. Nothing else in the sentence changes.
- वह खाता है — vah khaata hai 🔊 voh KHAA-ta hai He eats. वह खाती है — she eats. वह covers both 'he' and 'she'; only the verb distinguishes them.
- हम पढ़ते हैं — hum padhte hain 🔊 hum PARH-tay hain We study. Plural takes -ते and हैं.
- मैं नहीं जानता — main nahin jaanta 🔊 main na-HEEN JAAN-ta I do not know. नहीं goes just before the verb, and the हूँ is often dropped after it.
- क्या आप हिंदी बोलते हैं? — kya aap Hindi bolte hain? 🔊 kya aap HIN-dee BOL-tay hain Do you speak Hindi? क्या at the start of a sentence turns it into a yes/no question — exactly like Chinese 吗, but at the front.
- मुझे समझ नहीं आया — mujhe samajh nahin aaya 🔊 MOO-jhay sa-MAJH na-heen AA-ya I did not understand. Literally 'to me understanding did not come'.
Read every line aloud twice before moving on. The mouth learns a language, not the eye.
🔍 Everything agrees with the gender of the noun
Hindi nouns are masculine or feminine, and adjectives and verbs bend to match. This is the single thing learners get wrong most often — and native speakers notice instantly.
- बड़ा लड़का (big boy) → बड़ी लड़की (big girl)
- लड़का जाता है → लड़की जाती है
- Most words ending in -ा are masculine, most ending in -ी are feminine. Most, not all: पानी (water) is masculine.
- Learn each noun with an adjective attached, so the gender comes free.
🌍 Among the people
Hindi cinema is the fastest teacher of spoken Hindi ever built. Watch with Hindi subtitles rather than English ones and the connection between sound and script builds itself.
🔁 Practise today
- Say five sentences about your day, as a boy would, then as a girl would.
- Take ten nouns and guess their gender from the ending, then check.
- Practise नहीं placement: मैं जाता हूँ → मैं नहीं जाता.
