Little words after nouns

Where English puts “in”, “at” and “to” before a noun, Hindi puts them after it, as Tamil does with its endings.

Word	Meaning	Example	Meaning
mein	in	ghar mein	in the house
par	at, on	ghar par	at home
se	from; with; by	Chennai se	from Chennai
ko	to; marks the person who receives	Arun ko	to Arun
ke liye	for	aapke liye	for you
ke saath	together with	dost ke saath	with a friend
tak	up to, until	station tak	up to the station

Examples:

• Main Chennai se hoon. I am from Chennai.
• Yeh aapke liye hai. This is for you.
• Main dost ke saath hoon. I am with a friend.
• Woh office mein hain. He/She is in the office.

Words change before them

Pronouns have special forms:

Pronoun	+ ko (to)	+ ke liye (for)
main	mujhe	mere liye
tum	tumhe	tumhare liye
aap	aapko	aapke liye
woh	usko	uske liye

So Mujhe paani chahiye is “To me water is wanted”, which is why it does not change for men and women.

Masculine nouns ending in -a change to -e before these words: ladka (boy) becomes ladke ko (to the boy) and ladke ke saath (with the boy). Nouns that do not end in -a stay the same: ghar mein, Chennai se.

தமிழில்

ஆங்கிலத்தில் “in”, “at” போன்றவை பெயருக்கு முன் வரும்; இந்தியில் அவை தமிழைப் போலவே பெயருக்குப் பின் வரும்: ghar mein (வீட்டில்), ghar par (வீட்டில்/மேல்), Chennai se (சென்னையிலிருந்து), aapke liye (உங்களுக்காக), dost ke saath (நண்பனுடன்). main என்பது ko உடன் mujhe (எனக்கு) என்று மாறும், அதனால் Mujhe paani chahiye என்பது ஆண், பெண் இருவருக்கும் ஒன்றே.