Marathi grammar, step by step

Marathi habitual verbs agree with the subject's gender, not person. The stem बोल (speak) adds -तो for masculine and -ते for feminine, regardless of whether the speaker is I, you, or they.

Marathi follows Subject–Object–Verb order: the verb always lands at the end. The object (what is being spoken) slots in between the subject and the verb.

Every Marathi noun is masculine, feminine, or neuter. Most nouns ending in -ā are masculine; those ending in -ī are usually feminine; many non-human nouns are neuter regardless of ending.

Marathi has no articles. Instead, noun endings shift to mark grammatical role — who is doing, receiving, or containing the action.

Adjectives ending in -ā inflect to agree with the gender of the noun they describe: -ला for masculine, -ली for feminine, and -ले for neuter.

Marathi places relationship words after the noun — they are postpositions, not prepositions. The noun typically takes an oblique (slightly modified) form before a postposition.

Tense markers attach after the stem: -तो/-ते for habitual present (and agree with subject gender), -लो/-ली/-ले for simple past, and -ईन/-ईल for future.

The main negation word is नाही, which follows a present-tense participial (-त) form of the verb. For past negatives, नाही follows the past form. For imperatives, नको (don't / I don't want) is used.

Yes/no questions add का at the very end of the sentence. Question words like काय (what) or कुठे (where) stay in their natural position in the sentence — Marathi does not move them to the front the way English does.

In completed transitive sentences, third-person subjects take the marker ने and the verb agrees with the object instead of the subject. This flip — where agreement shifts to the object in the past — is called ergative alignment.

Aspect is expressed by combining a verb participle with the auxiliary आहे. The -त participle + आहे signals an ongoing action; the past form + आहे signals a completed action that is still relevant.

The infinitive is formed with -णे and acts as a noun meaning "speaking / to speak." Modals for want, can, and must each wrap the infinitive in a fixed construction.

Marathi distinguishes intimacy through the pronoun choice: तू is intimate (for close friends, children), while तुम्ही signals respect or formality and also serves as the plural "you." Verb forms change accordingly.

Marathi uses a participial form of the verb — which agrees with the noun in gender — placed directly before the noun. The participial form ending in -णारा/-णारी/-णारे means "one who [verb]s."

A single Marathi sentence layers SOV order, gender agreement on verb and adjective, the progressive aspect, postpositions, and negation — all at once.