Plural Nouns
बहुवचन संज्ञाएँ
English pluralizes with a single default suffix, -s, almost every time. Hindi's plural endings depend instead on the noun's gender and how it ends, so there's no one suffix to map directly onto English's -s.
Grammar Comparison
व्याकरण तुलना
English defaults to one suffix; Hindi's plural depends on gender and ending
book → books, dog → dogs, chair → chairs
लड़का → लड़के (masc., -ā → -e), किताब → किताबें (fem. consonant-ending, add -eñ), लड़की → लड़कियाँ (fem. -ī → -iyāñ)
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.
Vocabulary
शब्दावली
| English | Pronunciation | Hindi |
|---|---|---|
| book → books | book / books | किताब → किताबेंkitāb → kitābeñ |
| child → children | chyld / CHIL-dren | बच्चा → बच्चेbaccā → bacce |
| man → men | man / men | आदमी → आदमीādmī → ādmī |
| foot → feet | foot / feet | पैर → पैरpair → pair |
| mouse → mice | mows / mys | चूहा → चूहेcūhā → cūhe |
| fish → fish | fish / fish | मछली → मछलियाँmachlī → machliyāñ |