In Hindi the word for ‘how much?’ or 'how many?’ is कितना kitnaa and today we’re going to learn how to use this word and, of course, we’ll see many examples of it in real life sentances.  

Just like many Hindi words we’ve learnt so far, कितना kitnaa changes to agree with the noun; we use कितना kitnaa for singular masculine, कितने kitne for plural masculine and कितनी kitnee for feminine. 

Notice that in English we use 'How Much?’ for non-countable nouns (ie nouns that don’t have plurals) and 'how many?’ for countable ones. We say 'How much water?’ and 'How many dogs’ because 'dog’ is countable but 'water’ is not. The same is true for Hindi. So let’s see some examples…

कितने कुत्ते हैं? kitne kutte hain?
- How many dogs?

We use कितने kitne here because it agrees with the plural masculine कुत्ते kutte - dogs.

कितनी किताबें हैं? kitnee kitaaben hain?
- How many books? 

ग्यारह किताबें हैं gyaarah kitaaben hain
- Eleven books. 

And here कितनी kitnee is used to agree with the feminine किताबें kitaaben - Books. 

कितना दूध है? kitnaa doodh hai? 
-How much milk?

आपने कितना दूध पिया?
aapne kitnaa doodh piyaa?
- How much milk did you drink?

This sentences uses the past tense, which is quite advance. You can learn about it by clicking here. Now let’s see some more examples; 

तुम्हारे घर में कितने कमरे हैं?
tumhaare ghar men kitne kamare hain?
- How many rooms are there in your house?

निधी कितनी भाषाएँ बोल सकती है?
nidhee kitnee bhaashaaen bol saktee hai?
- How many languages can Nidhi speak?

This uses the word सकती saktee, it means “can” and  we learnt about in Lesson #64. 

कितने बजे हैं? kitne baje hain?
- What time is it?

Literally How many bells? or How many chimes? Remember we learnt this phrases, with the response 'it’s __ o'clock’, in Lesson #57. 

Do you think you now know and understand how to use the word कितना kitnaa? Practice writing out your own questions and then for even more extra practice try writing out their answers too! 

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