A2 · The past
The past with ने: agreeing with the object
the ergative construction with ने
With a transitive verb in the past, the subject takes ने and the verb agrees with the object: मैंने चाय पी.
At a glance
- Remember
- With ne, forget the subject: the verb agrees with the thing that was eaten, read or bought.
- 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
- मैंने, तुमने, आपने, हमनेI, you, we + ने
- Signal words
- ने
- मैंने
- उसने
- उन्होंने
- हमने
- आपने
- तुमने
- Trap
- Wrong:मैंने एक किताब पढ़ा।Right:मैंने एक किताब पढ़ी।
Your turn
10 exercises on this topic. Your answers are checked in the browser; none of them leaves your device.
The form
The patterns at a glance
Each row first says when or what the pattern is used for, then gives an example in Hindi.
| I, you, we + ने | मैंने, तुमने, आपने, हमने |
| he / she / it + ने | उसने, इसने |
| they + ने | उन्होंने, इन्होंने |
| noun + ने | लड़के ने, लड़की ने, लड़कों ने |
| object masculine singular | मैंने एक केला खाया |
| object feminine singular | मैंने एक किताब पढ़ी |
| object masculine plural | मैंने दो केले खाए |
| object feminine plural | मैंने दो किताबें पढ़ीं |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is aboutThe word that calls for it
A transitive verb in the past marks its subject with ने.
राहुल ने खाना खाया।Rahul ate.
The verb agrees with the object in gender and number.
मैंने एक किताब पढ़ी।I read a book.
A plural object makes the verb plural.
बच्चों ने सारे आम खाए।The children ate all the mangoes.
वह becomes उसने, वे becomes उन्होंने.
उन्होंने नया घर ख़रीदा।They bought a new house.
A noun before ने takes its oblique form.
लड़के ने खिड़की खोली।The boy opened the window.
Example sentences
मैंने एक अच्छी किताब पढ़ी।I read a good book.
सीमा ने सबके लिए चाय बनाई।Seema made tea for everyone.
राहुल ने नाश्ते में दो केले खाए।Rahul ate two bananas for breakfast.
हमने कल रात एक फ़िल्म देखी।We watched a film last night.
उन्होंने पिछले महीने नया घर ख़रीदा।They bought a new house last month.
लड़कियों ने एक पुराना गाना गाया।The girls sang an old song.
6 more example sentences
तुमने यह ख़बर कहाँ सुनी?Where did you hear this news?
माँ ने सुबह कपड़े धोए।Mum washed the clothes in the morning.
उसने मुझे एक लंबी चिट्ठी लिखी।She wrote me a long letter.
लड़कों ने पूरे दिन फ़ुटबॉल खेला।The boys played football all day.
आपने खाना खाया?Have you eaten?
मैंने बाज़ार से दो साड़ियाँ ख़रीदीं।I bought two saris at the market.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
A man reading the sentence about himself expects पढ़ा. But after ने the verb looks at the object, and किताब is feminine, so it is पढ़ी — from a man and from a woman alike.
The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
When a verb that takes an object — eat, drink, read, write, see, buy, make — is in the simple past or the perfect, its subject is followed by ने: राहुल ने खाना खाया, “Rahul ate”. A noun before ने takes its oblique form, as before any postposition: लड़के ने, लड़कियों ने.
The pronouns fuse with ने into one word, and two of them change shape: मैं → मैंने, तुम → तुमने, आप → आपने, हम → हमने, but वह → उसने, यह → इसने, वे → उन्होंने, ये → इन्होंने.
Now the important part. Once the subject has ने, the verb no longer agrees with it. It agrees with the object instead: सीमा ने चाय बनाई, with बनाई feminine because चाय is; सीमा ने दो केले खाए, with खाए masculine plural because केले is. Whether the eater was a man or a woman plays no part: राहुल ने चाय बनाई has the same verb.
Think of the sentence the way Hindi does: “by Seema, tea was made”. The thing that was made is the grammatical centre, and the verb follows it. In the habitual and progressive tenses and in the future there is no ने, and the verb goes back to agreeing with the subject.
A closer look
Which tenses take ने
Only the tenses built on the perfective participle: the simple past (मैंने खाया), the perfect (मैंने खाया है) and the pluperfect (मैंने खाया था). Everything else keeps the subject as it is: मैं खाता था, मैं खा रहा था, मैं खाऊँगा.
So the same verb, about the same person, can need ने in one sentence and not in the next: मैं रोज़ अख़बार पढ़ता हूँ, पर आज मैंने अख़बार नहीं पढ़ा. Look at the tense first, then at the verb.
Why it is called ergative
Grammars call this an ergative construction: the doer of a transitive action gets a mark of its own, and the verb sides with the thing acted on. English has a faint echo in the passive — “the tea was made by Seema” — where the verb also agrees with the tea. Hindi does the same in an ordinary active sentence.
Exceptions and special cases (2)
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the verb is लाना, to bring
there is no ने, although the verb has an object; the verb agrees with the subject.
वह बाज़ार से सब्ज़ियाँ लाई।She brought vegetables from the market.
लाना began life as a compound of “take” and “come”, and the coming part decides. Learners say मैंने लाया for years; it is मैं लाया, वह लाई.
-
the verb is बोलना, to speak
both वह बोला and उसने … बोला occur; with no object, वह बोला is usual.
उसने कहा कि वह कल आएगा।He said that he would come tomorrow.
Speaking sits on the border between doing something and simply making a sound. For “said” with a quotation or a clause, कहना is the safer verb, and it always takes ने.
Worth knowing (1)
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No object in sight: masculine singular
When a transitive verb with ने has no object in the sentence, it takes the masculine singular: मैंने खाया, “I ate”; उसने पूछा, “she asked”. The same default appears when the object is marked with को; that is a topic of its own.
उसने कुछ नहीं पूछा।She did not ask anything.
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