Background:
Let’s see how to conjugate: I saw
Note: Past Tense conjugation is unique
Grammar Construction
1) Start with: mai dekh
2) Add ne after mai and -a after verb:
mai ne dekh-a = I saw
mai ne sun-a = I heard
You Try...
I read (paDh) =
I said (bol) =
verbs ending with a or o
mai ne kha-a needs a transition consonant “y” between the two vowels
mai ne kha-ya = I ate
mai ne bata-ya = I told
You Try...
I made (bana) =
Add the masculine object
I saw a (male) dog = mai ne kutta dekh-a
As usual, the verb, dekh-a, is at the end of the sentence
You Try...
I saw a boy =
Feminine object
Let’s see how to conjugate the feminine object:
I saw a (female) cat = mai ne billi dekh-i
dekh-i agrees with the gender of cat (female)
We will call this conjugation as the 1st exception of the past tense
You Try...
I saw a girl =
Can you guess the conjugation? I saw two boys =
Conjugations for other persons
We can easily replace mai with the other persons
Radha ne dekh-a = Radha saw
ham ne dekh-a = We saw
aap ne dekh-a = You saw
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Radha heard =
We made =
2nd exception
Try to conjugate: She saw
Instead of vo ne dekh-a, it becomes us ne dekh-a
(Another usage of obliques. Think of this as “was seen by her”)
She ate
= vo ne kha-ya (wrong)
= us ne kha-ya (correct)
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He heard =
She made =
They
and use unho for they (not “un ne”)
unho ne bata-ya = They told
You Try...
They ate =
They saw =
Let’s practice more (1 to 2 minutes)
She saw a dog =
He ate a dosa =
She ate a roti =
I ate a roti =
