Plural Nouns

English defaults to one suffix; Hindi's plural depends on gender and ending

English collapses nearly every plural into one predictable move: add -s (book→books, chair→chairs). Hindi instead splits pluralization by the noun's gender and how it ends — masculine nouns ending in -ā typically shift to -e (लड़का→लड़के), feminine nouns ending in a consonant add -eñ (किताब→किताबें), and feminine nouns ending in -ī lengthen to -iyāñ (लड़की→लड़कियाँ). So where English asks you to memorize a short list of exceptions to a single rule, Hindi asks you to first sort the noun by gender and ending before you even reach the plural — English's small irregular list (man→men, child→children, foot→feet, mouse→mice) is comparatively light work once you're used to sorting nouns by gender in Hindi.