In today’s lesson we’re going to learn how to create negative sentences in Hindi. We’ll be applying our new knowledge of verbs and adjectives so recap over those lessons from Beginners Grammar section. This lesson will also serve as a great revision tool for recent lessons!

In Lesson #26 we learnt the word for no in Hindi; नहीं naheen, this is the word we’ll be using today.

To negate a sentence in Hindi you simply put नहीं naheen before the verb. Let’s look at a few examples;

मैं लंबा नहीं हूँ main lambaa naheen hoon - I am not tall. 

आप लंबे नहीं हैं aap lambe naheen hain - You are not tall (remember आप aap is treated as plural!). 

यह जर्मन नहीं है yeh jarman naheen hai - He is not German. 

तुम अच्छी बेटी नहीं हो tum acchee betee naheen ho - You are not a good daughter (Perhaps this seems quite offensive and I hope this wouldn’t actually be said I’m just building your knowledge of the grammar!) 

In fact in the negative you can even drop the auxiliary (that is the correct form of होना honaa ie हूँ hoon, है hai, etc), for example;

हम गोश्त नहीं खाते ham gosht naheen khaate - We do not eat meat. 

वह पानी नहीं पीती vo paanee naheen peetee - She does not drink water. 

However in the plural feminine case when dropping the auxiliary you add a nasalization to the end of the verb, for example;

वे औरतें शराब नहीं पीतीं ve auraten sharaab naheen peeteen - Those women don’t drink alcohol. 

So now we know how to create a negative sentence in Hindi! As usual make sure you practice this. One good way would be to go back through some of the last few lessons and turn each sentence into it’s negative form! 

Back to Beginner’s Grammar.