A2 · The past
The simple past: वह आया, वह गई
the simple past of intransitive verbs
Stem + ा, ी, े or ीं, with no auxiliary: वह आया, “he came”; वह आई, “she came”.
At a glance
- Remember
- Coming, going, sitting: no ne, and the verb follows the subject, just as in the present.
- When
- Before the past
- The past
- Past linked to the present
- The present
- The future
- Completed in the future
The past — Something that happened, finished, and stays where it happened.
- Form
- वह बैठा / वह आया / वह गयाman, masculine noun
- Signal words
- कल
- पिछले साल
- पिछले हफ़्ते
- आया
- आई
- गया
- गई
- पहुँचा
- Trap
- Wrong:मैंने कल दिल्ली गया।Right:मैं कल दिल्ली गया।
Your turn
10 exercises on this topic. Your answers are checked in the browser; none of them leaves your device.
The form
The forms side by side
All the forms in one overview: first what each one stands for, then the form in Hindi, so you can compare them directly.
| man, masculine noun | वह बैठा / वह आया / वह गया |
| woman, feminine noun | वह बैठी / वह आई / वह गई |
| masculine plural, तुम, आप | वे बैठे / वे आए / वे गए |
| feminine plural | वे बैठीं / वे आईं / वे गईं |
| I (man / woman) | मैं पहुँचा / मैं पहुँची |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is about
The past is the stem plus -ा, -ी, -े or -ीं, with no auxiliary.
मेरी दोस्त सात बजे पहुँची।My friend arrived at seven.
An intransitive verb agrees with its subject.
मेहमान शाम को आए।The guests came in the evening.
A vowel stem takes य in the masculine singular only: आया, but आई.
राहुल कल रात देर से आया।Rahul came late last night.
A feminine plural ends in -ीं.
लड़कियाँ ज़ोर से हँसीं।The girls laughed loudly.
Intransitive verbs never take ने.
मैं पिछले साल भारत गया।I went to India last year.
Example sentences
राहुल कल रात देर से आया।Rahul came late last night.
मेरी दोस्त सुबह सात बजे पहुँची।My friend arrived at seven in the morning.
ट्रेन स्टेशन पर दस मिनट रुकी।The train stopped at the station for ten minutes.
हम पूरे दिन घर पर रहे।We stayed at home all day.
लड़कियाँ ज़ोर से हँसीं।The girls laughed loudly.
आप कब लौटे?When did you get back?
6 more example sentences
वे पिछले साल भारत आए।They came to India last year.
मैं सुबह छह बजे उठी।I got up at six in the morning.
बच्चा सीढ़ियों से गिरा।The child fell down the stairs.
मेरी बहनें कल बाज़ार गईं।My sisters went to the market yesterday.
तुम कितने बजे पहुँचे?What time did you arrive?
हम एक घंटा पार्क में घूमे।We strolled in the park for an hour.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
ने belongs only to verbs that take an object. Going, coming, arriving and sitting have none, so the subject stays as it is: मैं, not मैंने. A woman says मैं कल दिल्ली गई.
The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
The simple past is a single word. Take the stem and add -ा for a man or a masculine noun, -ी for a woman or a feminine noun, -े for a masculine plural (and for तुम, आप), and -ीं for a feminine plural: बैठना → बैठा, बैठी, बैठे, बैठीं. There is no है or था after it — the participle alone is the tense.
A stem ending in -ा, -ो or -ए slips a य into the masculine singular only: आना → आया, but आई, आए, आईं; सोना → सोया, सोई, सोए, सोईं. The commonest verb of all, जाना, is irregular: गया, गई, गए, गईं.
This topic is about intransitive verbs — verbs that take no object: to come, go, arrive, sit, stay, laugh, stop, return. With them the past is simple: the verb agrees with the subject, exactly as in the present. राहुल आया, सीमा आई, लड़के आए, लड़कियाँ आईं.
And they never take ने. A verb with an object, such as eating or reading, works differently in the past; that is the next topic. The classic mistake is to carry that rule over: मैंने दिल्ली गया is wrong, because going has no object. It is मैं दिल्ली गया — or, from a woman, मैं दिल्ली गई.
A closer look
Which verbs are intransitive?
The test is the same as in English: can the verb have a direct object? You eat something and read something, but you do not “arrive something”. The intransitive verbs a learner needs first are आना, जाना, पहुँचना, बैठना, उठना, सोना, रहना, रुकना, चलना, लौटना, हँसना, रोना, गिरना, होना and मिलना in the sense of “to meet”.
Many of them have a transitive partner that looks similar: बैठना, to sit, against बिठाना, to seat someone; उठना, to get up, against उठाना, to lift. Only the transitive one takes ने. The pairs have a topic of their own.
The simple past is often a compound
In everyday speech many of these verbs prefer a compound with जाना: वह बैठ गया, “he sat down”; बच्चा सो गया, “the child fell asleep”. The plain वह बैठा is correct, but a compound says that something was completed or a state was reached. For now, the plain form is enough to be understood everywhere.
Worth knowing (1)
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मिलना, to meet, is intransitive
English “I met Rahul” has an object; Hindi does not. The person you meet takes से, and the subject stays unmarked: मैं कल राहुल से मिला. मैंने राहुल को मिला is a typical learner sentence and wrong twice over.
मैं कल राहुल से मिली।I met Rahul yesterday.
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