Ce chapitre n'a pas encore été traduit — il s'affiche en anglais.

Articles

There are none. No the, no a, no an.

किताब kitaab is "book", "a book" and "the book". Which one it means comes from context, and Hindi speakers do not feel the loss.

What fills the gap

When definiteness genuinely matters, Hindi reaches for other words.

• एक ek "one" can act as an indefinite article: एक आदमी आया — "a man came".
• यह / वह yah / vah "this / that" do duty for "the" when you need to point: वह किताब — "that book", or effectively "the book".
• को ko on a definite direct object: मैंने किताब पढ़ी is "I read a book"; मैंने किताब को पढ़ा singles that book out.

The consequence for learners

You cannot translate word for word out of English, because there is no slot for the article to go into. I saw the man is मैंने आदमी को देखा — four words, none of them "the".

Coming the other way is harder still. Hindi speakers learning English leave articles out or scatter them, because their first language has spent its whole history without them.

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