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Hindi phrases, by meaning
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Common questions about Hindi
What does this Hindi page cover?
Twenty-two functional categories with Hindi examples in each: tense and aspect (the present habitual करता है, the perfective with auxiliary, the progressive रहा है), modality (सकना for ability, चाहिए for need, पड़ना for compulsion), negation (नहीं, न, मत), questions (कौन, क्या, कहाँ, कब, क्यों, कैसे), comparison with से, and 16 others. Every example shows Devanagari, transliteration, and a word-by-word gloss.
Why does the Hindi verb agree with the object after ने?
Because Hindi splits its alignment by tense. In the imperfective past and all non-past, the verb agrees with the subject. In the perfective past of transitive verbs, the subject takes the postposition ने and the verb agrees instead with the object — that is the ergative split. राम ने रोटी खाई 'Ram ate the roti' has खाई agreeing with रोटी (F.SG), not with राम.
What are 'compound verbs' in Hindi, and why do they matter?
Most everyday actions in Hindi are expressed with a main verb plus a light verb (जाना, लेना, देना, पड़ना, बैठना) that adds nuance — completion, direction, suddenness, or benefit. खा 'eat' versus खा लिया 'ate up (for oneself)' versus खा डाला 'devoured'. Learning the light-verb meanings unlocks half of natural-sounding Hindi.
How does Hindi handle formal versus informal address?
Three levels: तू (intimate or to inferiors), तुम (familiar plural and singular), आप (respectful and grammatical plural). Each takes its own verb forms — करता है becomes करते हो with तुम and करते हैं with आप. आप uses plural agreement even when addressing one person.
Is this Standard Hindi or Hindi-Urdu / Hindustani?
Standard Modern Hindi (मानक हिन्दी), the Sanskrit-leaning register taught in schools and used in news and government. Spoken Hindi-Urdu (everyday Bollywood-register Hindustani) shares almost all of this grammar with Urdu, which writes the same syntax in Nastaʿlīq with more Persian-Arabic vocabulary. Phrases here use the broadly understood Hindustani lexicon where possible.
Sources for Hindi
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Kachru, Yamuna (2006). Hindi. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (London Oriental and African Language Library 12).
- Shapiro, Michael C. (2003). Hindi. In G. Cardona & D. Jain (eds.), The Indo-Aryan Languages, pp. 250–285. London: Routledge.
- McGregor, R. S. (1995). Outline of Hindi Grammar, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press.
- Snell, Rupert & Weightman, Simon (2003). Teach Yourself Hindi, 4th ed. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
- Mohanan, Tara (1994). Argument Structure in Hindi. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.