Can you stretch your minds back to Lesson #37? We began to learn about Hindi Possessive Pronouns. Can you remember what Possessive Pronouns are? That’s right, they’re words like ‘my’, 'his’, 'their’ etc, they show that someone owns something! In that lesson I told you there was a little, but very important, catch to these Possessive Pronouns that makes them a bit more complicated - I’m going to tell you all about that today! 

Before you carry on with this lesson though, make sure you’ve read Lesson #38: An Introduction to Hindi Nouns, we’re going to be using a lot from that lesson today so it’s very important you understand it! 

So let’s crack on and get to work, are you ready? In Lesson #37 we learnt how to say things like…

मेरा पलंग meraa palang - My bed

That’s quite straight forward yeah? But it’s not always that easy! Let me show you a few different examples, read through them slowly and see if you can notice a pattern…

मेरी किताब meree kitaab - My Book

उसके आलू uske aloo - His Potatoes

तुम्हारी बहन tumhaaree bahan - Your Sister

हमारे समोसे hamaare samose - Our Samosas

Woah, hang on! What has changed from before and why has it changed? Well let me tell you! Just like Adjectives, Possessive Pronouns must agree with the Gender of thing they are 'possessing’. So what on earth does that mean? 

Don’t worry, it’s easier than you think. Can you remember back to Lesson #38 where we were introduced to Hindi nouns? We learnt that every Hindi noun is either Masculine or Feminine. Our Possessive Pronouns must agree with the gender of the word! Read that last sentence again, Possessive Pronouns must agree with the gender of the thing they are possessing! This is one of the reasons why it’s so important to know the gender of words.  

This is why we say मेरा घर meraa ghar - My House because घर ghar - House is a Masculine word but we say मेरी किताब meree kitaab - My Book; because किताब kitaab - Book is a Feminine word! Can you see the difference? Do you understand why there is this difference? So let’s look at this in a bit more detail…

In the Singular Masculine Case:

This is when the thing someone is 'owning’ is Masculine and singular! In this case we use the pronouns exactly how we learnt in Lesson #37! For example;

मेरा घर meraa ghar - My House

आपका बेटा aapkaa betaa - Your Son 

For the Plural Masculine Case:

This is when the thing someone is 'owning’ is Masculine and there’s more than one of them! In this case we drop the आ -aa from the end of the Possessive Pronoun and add  ए -e. Remember the noun being possessed must also be in its plural case (see Lesson #39). This is like the 'His Potatoes’ and 'Our Samosas’ example from above! Other examples are…

उनके केले unke kele - Their Bananas

 

मेरे कुत्ते mere kutte - My Dogs

For the Singular and Plural Feminine Case:

This is when the thing someone is Feminine! In this case you drop the आ -aa from the end of the Possessive Pronoun and add ई-ee. This is the same in both the Singular and Plural case! This is just like in the 'My Book’ and 'Your Sister’ examples above! We can also say…

उसकी सड़ी uskee saree - Her Sari

मेरी चीज़ें meree ceezen - My Things

Phew and that’s the end! This is one of the reasons that learning the gender of a word in Hindi so important! This whole concept can be very confusing especially for English speakers. Read through this lesson a few times if you’re a little confused, and of course feel free to leave a comment below with a question if you have one. 

Back to Beginner’s Grammar.