Lesson 1 – Introduce yourself

Hello everyone,

It’s awesome that you have started your journey in learning Hindi!

In this first lesson, you will learn to introduce yourself, your profession, your mood, your nationality/identity, and your religion. Let’s start!

The first person pronoun in English is “I” as in “I am _______”.

Hindi equivalent for English “I” is “मैं (main)”.

The pronunciation of Hindi “main” is not similar to English “main”. In Hindi “main”, the last letter “n” must be pronounced with the help of the nose.

“Am” is a be verb. “Am” in Hindi is “हूँ (hoon)”.

Again, the “n” in “hoon” must be pronounced with the help of the nose.

Together “I am” translates to “ “मैं ____ हूँ” (main ______ hoon) in Hindi.

You must remember that Hindi follows Subject-Object-Verb format and all Hindi sentences end with verbs. And just like “am” comes only with “I” in English, “हूँ” (hoon) comes with “मैं (main)” in Hindi.

So “I am David” in Hindi is “main David hoon / मैं डेविड हूँ”.

“I am Rani” in Hindi is “main Rani hoon / मैं रानी हूँ”.

I have some more examples for you at the end, but now, let’s proceed.

“एक / ek” is number one in Hindi and can be used for articles “a/an” in Hindi. But we generally don’t use articles in Hindi.

So “I am a teacher” can be said like “main ek shikshak hoon” or “main shikshak hoon” in Hindi. We generally use the latter one.

English article “the” does not have any equivalent in Hindi.

Examples:

I am Amar – main Amar hoon – मैं  अमर  हूँ

I am an American – main ek American hoon – मैं एक अमेरिकन  हूँ

I am a doctor – main ek vaidya hoon – मैं  एक वैद्य  हूँ

I am happy – main khush hoon – मैं  खुश  हूँ

I am a Hindu – main ek Hindu hoon – मैं  एक हिन्दू  हूँ

From next lesson onwards, I will leave out the word for “a/an”.

Your turn now! Go ahead and type in your name/nationality/profession/mood/religion in the comment box below. Just use the English word if you don’t know the Hindi word for profession and mood (main doctor hoon).