EkGuru › Learn Hindi › Topics › Formal and informal Hindi
Three levels of 'you', and the cost of choosing wrong.
Hindi grades politeness in the grammar itself. Three second-person pronouns, each with its own verb forms.
आप is respectful. Strangers, elders, teachers, in-laws, anyone senior, anyone you are unsure about. It takes plural verb forms: आप कैसे हैं. A learner should default to it permanently. You will occasionally sound over-formal, which is a far smaller error than the alternative.
तुम is friendly and equal. Friends, colleagues of similar standing, younger people, most partners. आप कैसे हो becomes तुम कैसे हो.
तू is intimate or contemptuous, and which one depends entirely on the relationship. Between very close friends or from a parent to a small child it is warm. To a stranger, a waiter or anyone senior it is an insult, and a serious one. Films use it constantly between characters who already know each other, which is why learners pick it up and misapply it.
The politeness system extends past pronouns. The -इए imperative (कीजिए, बताइए) is the courteous form; the bare stem (कर, बता) is blunt. And जी attached to a name or to हाँ softens almost anything.
Watch which form is used TO you and match it. That is the whole rule, and it works.
| English | Hindi | Sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| Thank you | धन्यवाद | dhanyavaad |
| Thanks (Urdu-origin, very common) | शुक्रिया | shukriya |
| Please | कृपया | kripaya |
| Sorry / excuse me | माफ़ कीजिए | maaf keejiye |
| No problem | कोई बात नहीं | koi baat nahin |
| Yes | हाँ | haan |
| Yes (polite) | जी हाँ | jee haan |
| No | नहीं | nahin |
| No (polite) | जी नहीं | jee nahin |
| Okay / I see | अच्छा | achchha |
Devanagari is easy to get slightly wrong when it is typed by hand — a missing matra, the wrong nukta. If something here looks off to you, trust a native speaker over this page and please tell us so it gets fixed — it takes a moment and a real person reads it. Romanised spellings are a guide to the sound, not a standard: there is no single official way to write Hindi in Latin letters.
Reading gets you the grammar. Speaking is the part that only happens with another human. EkGuru tutors are native Hindi speakers in India who teach one to one over video — no group classes, no subscription.
Find a Hindi Guru Free Hindi guides