So do you think you’re starting to get the hang of the Past Tense in Hindi now? We’ve seen quite a lot of new information so don’t worry if you’re still a little rusty, it can take some time to sink in! Remember to check out the Intermediate Grammar Section where you will find all the lessons about Past Tense Verbs. I’d also suggest reading the last lesson again, Practice with the Past Tense, because practice really does make perfect!

Anyway, by now you’re probably wondering what we’re going to do today right? Well let me tell you (if you haven’t guess by the title yet!). Just like English, some verbs in Hindi are irregular the past tense. But thankfully for us, irregular verbs in Hindi are so much easier than English ones! 

In English we usually add -ed for past tense but we’d never say ‘I eated and drinked’, we’d say 'I ate and drank’ because these are irregular verbs! 

Now the good news! Irregular verbs in Hindi are actually really easy because there’s only really 5 common irregular verbs (compare that with English where there’s so many!). One of these irregular verbs I’ve already told you about and the other four follow a pattern. How easy can you get!

Ok, ready? Click to read on…

The first irregular verb for the Hindi Past tense is जाना jaanaa - To go, and of course it’s an Intransitive Verb! I told you about this verb in the Past Tense back in Lesson #81, can you remember now? That’s right, we use गया gayaa, or गए gae, or गई gaee, or finally गईं gaeen to mean 'Went’.  Head back to Lesson #81 (near the bottom) to refresh your memory! 

So we could say; मैं बाज़ार गया main baazaar gayaa - I went to the Market (Said by a Male) or for a female मैं बाज़ार गई main baazaar gaaee - I went to the Market (said by a Female). That’s pretty straight forward yeah? 

That’s one irregular verb down, ready for the other four? These four are all Transitive! We learnt about The Past Tense for Transitive Verbs in Lesson #83 so check back to the lesson if you’ve forgot anything! I’ll show you the verbs and then we’ll see some examples… 

           Verb                        Sing Masc      Plurl Masc    Sing Fem    Plurl Fem

करना karnaa - To Do       किया kiyaa      किए kie       की kee       कीं keen

लेना  lenaa - To Take       लिया liyaa        लिए lie        ली lee        लीं leen

देना  denaa - To Give       दिया diyaa        दिए die        दी dee        दीं deen

पीना peenaa - To Drink    पिया piyaa       पिए pie         पी pee        पीं peen

Wow, so that probably looks really complicated but don’t worry. Let me show you a bunch of examples to help you understand… 

Remember that all these verbs are Transitive so the verb agrees with the object and we have to use ने ne just like we learnt in Lesson #83!

मैंने मेज़ साफ़ की mainne mez saaf kee
- I cleaned the desk (Male or Female).  

Can you see the verb agrees with the Singular Feminine word मेज़ mez - Desk. 

क्या तुमने टमाटर लिए? 
kyaa tumne taamaatar lie
- Did you take the Tomatoes? 

शालिनी ने बहुत-सारा पानी पिया 
shaalinee ne bahut saaraa paanee piyaa
- Shalini drank lots of water.

मैंने लड़के को किताबें दीं 
mainne larke ko kitaaben deen 
- I gave the books to the boy. 

And that’s it for now, phew! The most important thing about this lesson is to remember that these five verbs are irregular and so they don’t follow the usual pattern! Some of the example sentences are a little tricky so please feel free to leave a question below if you have any problems understanding. 

Back to the Intermediate Grammar Section.