There are times when the beginners get confused about the correct grammatical gender in Hindi. This is the most common mistake among all that Hindi learners are making. It is also important to note that the gender in Hindi languages may not be the same as in your language so it is important to learn the gender of the word.

Let me show you some of the common mistakes associated with the incorrect grammatical gender as well as how you can avoid them. Let us take some examples, taking each of them with in detail.

1. मैं वहां जाता हूँ। (Main wahan jaata hoon – I go there) – This is a basic sentences, yet a perfect example to show that you need to take care of verb declension if there is pronoun. This sentence is fine for a male person, but incorrect for a female. Why? The verb declension happens with respect to the gender. Here in this sentence, it is “जाता” (Jaata), which is declension for masculine noun or pronoun. If there is female person, the verb declension results in “जाती” (Jaati). The pronoun is “मैं” (Main), which is same for male and female like “I” in English.

2. मुझे आज काम नहीं करना। (Mujhe aaj kaam nahi karna – I don’t have to work today) and मुझे आज बात नहीं करनी। (Mujhe aaj baat nahi karni – i don’t have to talk today)
In both sentence, we have “मुझे” (Mujhe) and used by same person so how come the verb declensions are different in both of them?
To answer this question, let’s see what’s come in between of “मुझे” (Mujhe) and the verb declensions करना (karna) and करनी (karni). There is a noun between the twos in each of the sentences and this noun decide the declension for the verb. In first sentence, the gender of “काम” (Kaam – Work) is masculine and in second, the gender of “बात” (Baat – Conversation) is feminine.

3. बस चलती है। (Bas chalti hai – Bus runs) or बस चलता है। (Bas chalta hai – Bus runs)
So, which sentence is correct? Which one is noun? Where is the verb declension?
Here, we have noun “बस” (Bas – Bus) which has feminine gender in Hindi and so, the first sentence is correct with the verb declension “चलती” (chalti – goes).

Remember: the verb declension which ends with the sound “a” are of masculine and those end with the sound of “i” are of feminine. In Hindi, the verb declension always comes at the end. Use this hints to find the gender of the noun or pronoun.