Hindi verbs change with tense, gender and number at once, which sounds worse than it is. There are only a handful of endings, and they repeat across every verb in the language.
All examples use करना (karna, to do). The stem is कर — remove the -ना from any verb and you have its stem.
| Who | Male speaker | Female speaker |
|---|---|---|
| मैं (I) | करता हूँ | करती हूँ |
| तुम (you, informal) | करते हो | करती हो |
| आप (you, formal) | करते हैं | करती हैं |
| वह (he/she) | करता है | करती है |
| हम (we) | करते हैं | करती हैं |
| वे (they) | करते हैं | करती हैं |
The pattern: -ता masculine singular, -ती feminine, -ते masculine plural or formal. Then हूँ / हो / है / हैं depending on who.
Stem + रहा/रही/रहे + हूँ/है/हैं
मैं कर रहा हूँ — I am doing (man)
मैं कर रही हूँ — I am doing (woman)
वे कर रहे हैं — they are doing
Stem + आ/ई/ए
मैंने किया — I did (man or woman; see the ने rule below)
वह गया — he went · वह गई — she went
हम आए — we came
In the past tense, if the verb is transitive — it takes an object — the subject takes ने, and the verb then agrees with the object, not the subject.
Intransitive verbs — go, come, sleep, sit — take no ने:
This is the hardest single rule in beginner Hindi. Even confident second-language speakers slip on it, and getting it wrong will not stop you being understood.
Stem + ऊँगा/ऊँगी, ोगे, ेंगे
मैं करूँगा — I will do (man) · मैं करूँगी — (woman)
तुम करोगे — you will do
आप करेंगे · हम करेंगे · वे करेंगे
These five cover an enormous amount of everyday speech:
होना to be · करना to do · जाना to go · आना to come · चाहना to want
होना is irregular and worth memorising outright: हूँ, हो, है, हैं.
You do not need all three tenses to start speaking. Learn the present properly, and use kal (yesterday/tomorrow) with it for everything else while you build up. "Main kal Delhi jaata hoon" is not correct Hindi, but you will be understood perfectly, and you will be speaking — which is the thing that actually moves you forward.
Add the past tense in month two, the ने rule in month three, and stop worrying about it.
The gender endings throughout this page are explained in our gender guide, and the word order in our sentence structure guide.
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