Lesson #81: The Past Tense for Intransitive Verbs
Transitivity. This is the big word we started talking about in Lesson #79. Can you remember what it means? I know it was quite a tricky concept, so read back over Lesson #79 once more if you’re at all confused.
I mentioned that the Past Tense (that’s sentences like ‘I walked’, 'He ate’, 'They Slept’ etc) is more difficult in Hindi because the way we create a sentence is different for Transitive and Intransitive verbs. Are you following? Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense yet, you’ll understand everything by the end, promise.
So today we’re going to learn how to create Past Tense sentences for Intransitive Verbs. These are verbs that do not have an object (Again read Lesson #79 if you’ve forgot what this means!) and they usually show some kind of movement.
We’re going to do things a bit differently today, first I’m going to show you some examples then I’ll go into detail and explain why we do what you’ve seen.
तैरना tairnaa is the verb To Swim and we know it’s intransitive. We already know how to say मैं तैरता हूँ main tairtaa hoon - I swim (said by a male). This is just the Present Tense and we learnt that all the way back in Lesson #28. So how do we say 'I swam’ (the Past Tense version of 'I swim’)? Well it’s easy, all we say is;
मैं तैरा main tairaa
- I swam (said by a male).
Ready for a different example? How do you say 'You walk’ in Hindi? This is easy, तुम चलते हो tum calte ho - You walk (said to a Male, informal). So can you make a guess to how we say 'You walked’? Ready?
तुम चले tum cale
- You walked (said to a male, informal).
Are you starting to see a pattern? Let me show you another example. We know how to say 'She sleeps’ it’s just; वह सोती है voh sotee hai - She sleeps. How do you think we say 'She slept’? We actually say
वह सोई voh soee - She slept.
Have you figured the pattern now? Don’t worry if you haven’t, let me explain everything to you…
For the Past Tense for Intransitive Verbs we add to the verb root;
- आ aa For Masculine Singular subjects or,
- ए e For Masculine Plural subjects or,
- ई ee For Feminine Singular subjects or finally,
- ईं een For Feminine Plural Subjects
For verb roots that end with a vowel we add या yaa for the Masculine Singular case but all other cases are the same. The verb आना aanaa - To Come (which ends with a vowel) for example is;
मैं आया main aayaa - I came (said by a Male)
मैं आई main aaee - I came (said by a Female)
आप आए aap aae - You came (to a Male, formal)
वे आईं ve aaeen - They came (all Female)
The verb जाना jaanaa - To Go changes a little for the Past Tense (in English this is 'went’) , it becomes
गया gayaa (Singular Masculine) गए gaae (Plural Masculine)
गई gaee (Singular Feminine) गईं gaeen (Plural Feminine)
For example;
मैं पाकिस्तान गया main paakistaan gayaa
- I went to Pakistan (Said by a male).
And thats it for today! We know know how to create past tense sentences for Intransitive Verbs, and remember that everything we’ve learnt here is only for Intransitive verbs. The Past Tense for Transitive verbs will be covered very soon!
I know this lesson has been very long and there’s been a lot of new information, so well done for sticking with it! Make sure you read through everything several times so you remember it all. I’ll be showing you many more example soon so don’t worry!
