Learn the basic facts concerning grammatical cases in Hindi
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Intro |
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| Alisha: How many grammatical cases are there in Hindi? |
| Shakti: And how do they work? |
| Alisha: At HindiPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Consider the following situation. Ben Lee is an exchange student and he is studying with his teacher, Rashmi Raheja. Ben is confused about the number of cases in Hindi and asks Rashmi, |
| "How many cases are there in Hindi?" |
| बेन: हिंदी में कितने कारक होते हैं? (hiNDii men kiTaNe kaarak hoTe hain?) |
| Dialogue |
| बेन: हिंदी में कितने कारक होते हैं? (hiNDii men kiTaNe kaarak hoTe hain?) |
| रश्मि: आठ कारक होते हैं। (aath kaarak hoTe hain.) |
| Alisha: Once more with the English translation. |
| बेन: हिंदी में कितने कारक होते हैं? (hiNDii men kiTaNe kaarak hoTe hain?) |
| Alisha: "How many cases are there in Hindi?" |
| रश्मि: आठ कारक होते हैं। (aath kaarak hoTe hain.) |
| Alisha: "There are eight cases." |
Lesson focus |
| Alisha: The focus of this lesson is the eight grammatical cases in Hindi, and it's going to be a long lesson. Learners, are you ready? Ok, first, how do we refer to "cases" in Hindi? |
| Shakti: कारक (kaarak). |
| Alisha: In a Hindi sentence, a case shows the relationship of the noun or pronoun with the verb. Hindi nouns and pronouns can change or inflect in eight ways, depending on the number and the gender. Let's find out what these eight inflections are. The first is the nominative case, which is |
| Shakti: कर्ता (karTaa). |
| Alisha: The second is the accusative case, which is |
| Shakti: कर्म (karm). |
| Alisha: The third is the instrumental case, which is |
| Shakti: करण (karan). |
| Alisha: Fourth is the dative case, which is |
| Shakti: संप्रदान (SampraDaaN). |
| Alisha: The fifth is ablative, |
| Shakti: अपादान (apaaDaaN). |
| Alisha: The sixth is genitive, |
| Shakti: संबंध (SambaNDH). |
| Alisha: The next is locative, |
| Shakti: अधिकरण (aDHikaran). |
| Alisha: And, finally, the last one is vocative, |
| Shakti: संबोधन (SamboDHaN). |
| Alisha: So, these are the eight ways in which Hindi nouns and pronouns can be inflected. Furthermore, in Hindi, there are certain suffixes or signs that are placed after the noun or pronoun. These are called case declension signs in English. Declension is the variation in the noun or pronoun, by which one can identify its grammatical case, number, and gender. In Hindi, it's called... |
| Shakti: कारक विभक्ति (kaarak vibhakTi). |
| Alisha: Now, let's take a quick look at these eight cases and their suffixes. Do you remember the first one? |
| Shakti: कर्ता (karTaa), |
| Alisha: or the nominative case. The nominative case helps identify the "doer" of the action and the suffix used for this is... |
| Shakti: ने (Ne). |
| Alisha: For example, |
| Shakti: आपने क्या किया? (aapaNe kyaa kiyaa?), |
| Alisha: or "What did you do?" In Hindi, this is "You what did?" The declension suffix, |
| Shakti: ने (Ne), |
| Alisha: has been added to the Hindi "you" in this case and indicates that "you" are doing the action. |
| The second form of inflection is the accusative case. |
| Shakti: कर्म (karm). |
| Alisha: The accusative case helps identify the noun or pronoun impacted by the action. The suffix for this is... |
| Shakti: को (ko). |
| Alisha: For example, |
| Shakti: आपने चिट्ठी को लिखा। (aapaNe citthii ko Likhaa), |
| Alisha:or "You wrote the letter," or, in Hindi, "you letter to write." In this sentence, |
| Shakti: को (ko), |
| Alisha: has been added after the word "letter," which means the "letter" is affected by the action of "writing." So, "letter" is the... |
| Shakti: कर्म कारक (karm kaarak), |
| Alisha: or the accusative case. The next one is the instrumental case, |
| Shakti: करण (karan). |
| Alisha: The thing which helps the noun do the action is the "instrument" in Hindi. There are two signs for identifying this in a sentence. These are... |
| Shakti: से (Se) |
| Alisha: and... |
| Shakti: द्वारा (Dvaara). |
| Alisha: For example, |
| Shakti: मैं चम्मच से खा रही हूँ। (main cammac Se khaa rahii huun), |
| Alisha: or "I am eating with the spoon" or, in Hindi, "I spoon with eating." Here, the "spoon" is the instrument through which the action of "eating" is being done and is followed by the declension sign. |
| Shakti: से (Se). |
| Alisha: Let's move on to the next one. |
| Shakti: संप्रदान कारक (SampraDaaN kaarak), |
| Alisha: or the dative case. This basically means "to give" and refers to the person or thing for which the action is being done or the recipient. The signs for this are... |
| Shakti: के लिए (ke Liye), |
| Alisha: and... |
| Shakti: को (ko). |
| Alisha: Here is an example: |
| Shakti: बच्चे को फल दो। (bacche ko phaL Do.) |
| Alisha: This means "Give the fruit to the kid" or, in Hindi, it is "Kid to fruit give." Here, the "kid" is the recipient and is followed by the dative sign of... |
| Shakti: को (ko). |
| Alisha: Next, we have the ablative case, |
| Shakti: अपादान (apaaDaaN). |
| Alisha: The ablative case shows the action which is responsible for separating one object from another or for one object moving away from the other. The declension sign for this is... |
| Shakti: से (Se). |
| Alisha: For example, |
| Shakti: चिड़िया पेड़ से उड़ गई। (cidiyaa ped Se ud gayii.) |
| Alisha: This means "The bird flew away from the tree" or, in Hindi, "bird tree from fly gone." Here, the sign |
| Shakti: से (Se) |
| is placed after "tree" and shows that the "bird" separates from the "tree" by the action of "flying." |
| Next, we have the genitive case, |
| Shakti: संबंध (SambaNDH). |
| Alisha: The genitive case in Hindi shows possession or the relationship between two things. There are quite a few suffixes used to denote this. These are... |
| Shakti: 'का' (kaa), 'के' (ke), 'की' (kii), 'रा' (raa), 'रे' (re), 'री' (rii). |
| Alisha: For example, |
| Shakti: यह मेरी कुर्सी है। (yah merii kurSii hai.) |
| Alisha: This means, "this is my chair" or, in Hindi, "this my chair is." Here, the genitive case, |
| Shakti: मेरी (merii), |
| Alisha: is used to show the relationship between the chair and you, that is, the chair is your possession. Ok, let's move on to the seventh form of inflection. |
| Shakti: अधिकरण (aDHikaran). |
| Alisha: This is the locative case and denotes the place or time of the action done by the noun or pronoun. There are two declension signs for this, |
| Shakti: में (men), |
| Alisha: which is "in." The second one is... |
| Shakti: पर (par), |
| Alisha: which means, "on." For example, |
| Shakti: मेज़ कमरे में रखी है। (mez kamare men rakhii hai.) |
| Alisha: "The table is kept in the room," or, literally, "table room in kept is." Here, the locative case tells us that the "table" is "in" the "room." Therefore, the declension sign, |
| Shakti: में (men), |
| Alisha: follows the word "room." Now, the eighth and last Hindi grammatical case is the vocative case, |
| Shakti: संबोधन (SamboDHaN). |
| Alisha: The vocative case is used for calling out to someone. There are two words mainly used in the vocative case, |
| Shakti: अरे! (are!) and हे! (he!). |
| Alisha: These are always followed by the exclamation mark. Let's look at a sample sentence. |
| Shakti: अरे माइकल! कहाँ जा रहे हो? (are MaaikaL! kahaan jaa rahe ho?) |
| Alisha: This means, "Hey Alisha! Where are you going?" or literally, "Hey Alisha! Where going are?" |
| Alright, that's all for the eight Hindi grammatical cases! |
| Practice Section |
| Alisha: Let's review the sentences we've heard in this lesson. I'll say the sentence in English, and then I want you to try and reply in Hindi. Shakti will then model the correct answer—listen to him carefully and repeat, with emphasis on your pronunciation. |
| Do you remember how to say "How many cases are there in Hindi?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Shakti: हिंदी में कितने कारक होते हैं? (hiNDii men kiTaNe kaarak hoTe hain?) |
| Alisha: Did you get it right? Listen again and repeat. |
| Shakti: हिंदी में कितने कारक होते हैं? (hiNDii men kiTaNe kaarak hoTe hain?) |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Shakti: हिंदी में कितने कारक होते हैं? (hiNDii men kiTaNe kaarak hoTe hain?) |
| Alisha: Now for our next sentence. Do you remember how to say "There are eight cases?" |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Shakti: आठ कारक होते हैं। (aath kaarak hoTe hain.) |
| Alisha: Listen again and repeat. |
| Shakti: आठ कारक होते हैं। (aath kaarak hoTe hain.) |
| [Beep. Pause 5 seconds.] |
| Shakti: आठ कारक होते हैं। (aath kaarak hoTe hain.) |
Outro |
| Alisha: In this video, we learned about the eight ways that nouns or pronouns can be inflected in Hindi. Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Shakti: फिर मिलेंगे! (phir miLenge!) |
| Alisha: See you soon! |
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