Family
परिवार
English dropped grammatical gender entirely — no gendered verb endings, nothing on the noun itself. Hindi keeps gender alive in its verbs, and also keeps a distinction English lost: which side of the family a relative comes from.
Grammar Comparison
व्याकरण तुलना
No grammatical gender on nouns or verbs
the mother, the father — same 'the' either way; she comes, he comes — same 'comes' either way
वह आती है (she comes) / वह आता है (he comes) — the verb ending itself changes with gender
Hindi verbs change their ending depending on the subject's gender — वह आती है vs. वह आता है — even though the pronoun वह ('he'/'she') is identical either way. English is the odd one out here: 'comes' stays 'comes' no matter who's doing it, and gender only shows up in the pronoun itself (he/she). This makes English easier in one specific way — you never have to remember a gendered verb form — but you lose the built-in redundancy Hindi gives you, where the verb ending alone can reveal the subject's gender even if the pronoun is ambiguous or dropped.
Maternal and paternal relatives get the same word
grandmother (used for both your mother's mother and your father's mother)
नानी (mother's mother) vs. दादी (father's mother) — completely different words
Hindi has separate, dedicated words for almost every relative depending on which side of the family they're from: नानी/नाना for your mother's parents, दादी/दादा for your father's parents, मामा (mother's brother) versus चाचा/ताऊ (father's younger/elder brother). English collapses all of this: 'grandmother', 'uncle', and 'cousin' cover both sides with no built-in way to distinguish, short of adding a full explanatory phrase ('my mother's mother'). Don't go looking for a single English word that captures the distinction Hindi makes automatically — it isn't there, so you'll need extra words in English where Hindi would simply give you one precise term.
Vocabulary
शब्दावली
| English | Pronunciation | Hindi |
|---|---|---|
| mother | MUH-ther | माँmāñ |
| father | FAH-ther | पिताpitā |
| brother | BRUH-ther | भाईbhāī |
| sister | SIS-ter | बहनbahan |
| grandmother | GRAND-muh-ther | नानी / दादीnānī / dādī |
| grandfather | GRAND-fah-ther | नाना / दादाnānā / dādā |
| son | suhn | बेटाbeṭā |
| daughter | DAW-ter | बेटीbeṭī |