Can you remember what we covered last time in Lesson #38: Nouns Part 1? That’s right, we learnt a few important things about Hindi nouns. The most important of these is that every single Hindi noun is either Masculine of Feminine! 

Today we’re going to learn how to change Hindi nouns into their plural form. In case you don’t know plural is used when we’re talking about more than one thing.  So for example in English, changing the word dog to dogs makes it plural. 

Now before we start let me tell you a little secret, Hindi plurals are much, much easier than English plurals. Don’t believe me? Well firstly think how many different ways there are in English to make a word plural, for example think about the words cat - cats, foot -feet, mouse -mice, sheep - sheep, radius - radii, lady - ladies, child - children. Phew I’ll stop there but there’s many many others. All of these words follow different rules and that’s what makes English plurals so hard! The great news is that Hindi has only 4 different rules and it’s super easy to tell which rule we apply, so if you’ve mastered English plurals you can master Hindi ones!

So we’re going to look at these four rules one by one. Remember when I said in Lesson #38 that it’s really important to know the gender of Hindi words? Well here’s why…

Masculine Nouns

Firstly we’re going to break down every single Masculine Noun into two groups, those that end with the vowel आ aa and those that end with anything else! We’re going to to call these Type 1 and Type 2. Each different type has a different rule, so let’s get straight to it!

Type 1 Masculine Nouns (Those that end with आ aa)  

For these nouns, to make them plural, we simply drop the आ aa from the end of the word and instead add an ए e. So let’s see a few examples…

कुत्ता kuttaa - ‘dog’ is कुत्ते kutte - 'dogs’

Can you see what we’ve done here? Yeah see, just like I said above - we simply drop the drop the आ aa from the end of the word and add an ए e! Here’s another example;

The plural of the word दरवाज़ा darvaazaa - 'door’ is दरवाज़े darvaaze - 'doors’. Can you see the rule being applied here? अच्छा acchaa - great! Ready for Type 2 now? 

Type 2 Masculine Nouns (Those that end with anything else)  

These are probably the easiest words ever to make plural! Want to know why? It’s because they don’t change at all! There’s nothing different! So for example…

The plural of the word अख़बार akhbaar - 'newspaper’ doesn’t change at all, it’s still अख़बार akhbaar - 'newspapers’! Easy hey? 

Now you might turn round to me and say “but wait hang on, if these words are the same in singular and plural then how do we know the difference - how do we know if someone’s talking about one newspaper or many?”. The answer to that is that the grammar of the Hindi sentence will usually tell you, but we’ll learn more about that later! 

Feminine Nouns

Again, just like with Masculine nouns, we’re going to break up Feminine nouns into two separate groups. So let’s get to it!

Type 1 Feminine Nouns (Those that end with ई ee)

For these nouns we simply drop the ई ee from the end of the word and add इयाँ iyaan instead! Let’s see an example…

The plural of the word मछली machlee - 'fish’ is मछलियाँ machliyaan - 'fish’ ('fishes’). Can you see what we’ve done? Ready for another example?

The plural of the word सब्ज़ी sabzee - 'vegetable’ is सब्ज़ियाँ sabziyaan - 'vegetables’. Can you see the same rule here again? Great! Ready to move on to the final group of nouns? Here goes…

Type 2 Feminine Nouns (Those that end with anything else) 

In this case we simply add एँ en to the end of the word - easy! So for example…

मेज़ mez - 'table’ is मेज़ें mezen - 'tables’

Can you see what we’ve done here? Yeah that’s right, all we’ve done is add एँ en to the end! One more example…

The plural of आग aag - 'fire’ is आगें aagen - 'fires’

Phew! That’s everything! That’s all 4 rules covered. I know it’s been quite long so well done if you’ve made it all the way to the end. Can you remember all the rules? Here’s a quick easy to read summary for you…

Masculine Nouns

• If the noun ends with आ aa then drop the आ aa and add ए e. 
• If not then the word doesn’t change at all!

Feminine Nouns 

• If the noun ends with ई ee then drop the ई ee and add इयाँ iyaan. 
• If not then simply add एँ en to the end!

Do you think you can remember them all? Well try it, here’s a little quiz - can you convert each of these words into their plural form? Here’s a tip, if you get stuck look at the summary just above and figure out what rule you need to apply first! 

1. लड़का larkaa - Boy (M)                    2. लड़की larkee - Girl (F)

3. माता maataa - Mother (F)                4. कान kaan - Ear (M)

5. बहन bahan - Sister (F)                    6. कमरा kamraa - Room (M)

So go on, give it a go in the comments section just below! Don’t forget if you have any questions at all you can leave them in the comments section too and I’ll be sure to help!

Back to Beginner’s Grammar.