Hindi Lessons/Lesson 6

Lesson 6: Adjectives. Colors,Qualities

After the long and fatiguing lesson about hindi tenses, let me explain you how adjectives act in hindi in a short and neat lesson :-)

What you've learned so far will help you much to understand the adjectives in Hindi. Actually they act just like nouns or verbs, having the ending -a for masculine and -i for feminine (generally speaking). The other thing you have to know about them is that they're declined according to the noun they modify. Nothing new as I said! Here are some adjectives, which I'll use a little below in a few examples.

General Adjectives:


 * बडा,महान (bada - some pronounce that 'bara') = Big
 * छोटा,अल्प,लघु (chhota) = Small
 * लम्बा,दीर्घ (lamba) = Long
 * ठिगना (thigna)= short
 * महंगा (mahnga) = Expensive
 * सस्ता(sasta) = Cheap
 * साफ,निर्मल (saf) = Clean
 * गान्दा,मलिन(gandha) = Dirty
 * ठण्डा(thanda) = Cold
 * गर्म (garam) = Hot
 * शुभ (shubh) = good
 * अशुभ (ashubh) = bad
 * सुरूप( sundar) = beautiful
 * कुरूप (karuup) =ugly
 * बलवान (balvan) = strong
 * नीरस,अशक्त(ners, ashkt) = weak
 * शीघ्र (shegr) = clever
 * मूर्ख ( murkh) = stupid

Note that all adjectives given above are in masculine. To make them feminine simply change the -a to an -i and of course those not ending in a vowel do not change at all...

Now we'll use those to build some sentences you already are familiar with:

यह बडा घर है. (Yeh bara ghar hai. ) = This is a big house. यह घर बडा है. (Yeh ghar bara hai.) = This house is big. लडकी अच्छी रोटी खाती है. (larki acchi roti khati hai) = The girl eats a tasty bread. मैं ठण्डी पानी पी रहा हुं. (mai~ thandi pani pi raha hu~) = I'm drinking cold water.

Note how meaning can change depending on the position of the adjective in the first two sentences. Actually nothing so different in meaning, but rather the way of saying that "the house is big" is changed... Now you get the idea, I hope. Therefore let me show you some colors:

Colors:रंग (rang)


 * सफेद, श्वेत (safed) = White
 * काला,श्याम (kala) = Black
 * नील (nila) = Blue
 * हरा (hara) = Green
 * पीला (pila) = Yellow
 * लाल,रक्त,लोहित रंग का (lal) = Red
 * जामुनी, बैंगनी( jamuni, baingni) =Purple
 * कपिश,भूरा(kapish, bhura) = brown
 * धूसर(dhusr) = grey
 * गुलाबी, पाटल (gulabi, patl) = pink
 * नारंगी,कमला (narangi, kamla) orange

I've mentioned it above, but I'll say it once again. You have to "decline" the adjective according to the word it modifies. If it's masculine, use the adjective with the ending -a else i.e. if the word being modified is feminine change the ending to -i. If a word ends in a consonant however you don't have to decline it at all!

You have it all now. You can build crazy sentences as for example "This is a blue house" (Yeh nila ghar hai) or "The girl eats red bread" (Ladki lal roti khati hai) etc. :-) Just be imaginative. I won't give more examples in this lesson. I've promised it'll be short, so it is. Next lesson is about the cases. It isn't really hard, but it's very important. There you'll learn some postpositions as well.