Namaste! (नमस्ते)

Today we’ll take at the gender of Hindi nouns and I’ll give examples of some sentences that show the change in gender of nouns.

Hindi nouns are either masculine or feminine.

Masculine nouns often end in ā. Example: लड़का  (boy), राजा  king

However, there are masculine nouns that don’t end in ā. घर  (house), आदमी  man

Many feminine nouns end in ī. Example: लड़की  (girl), गाड़ी car

Again, not all feminine nouns end in ī. माता  mother, किताब  book

मैं लड़का हूँ  I am a boy (where the noun ‘boy’ is in the masculine)

मैं लड़की हूँ  I am a girl (where the noun ‘girl’ is in the feminine)

मैं = I, हूँ = am, लड़का = boy. In Hindi the verb is placed at the end of the sentence. So in Hindi, ‘I am a boy’ will be ‘I boy am’.

In Hindi, the pronouns do not tell us much about the gender of a person or thing. Therefore, the noun will reflect whether the thing or person alluded to are feminine or masculine. Take a look at these examples:

वह लड़का है  he is a boy

वह लड़की है she is a girl

With the two examples above, vah (वह) which is the pronoun for he or she, is exactly the same, with only the noun giving us any indication of gender.