Image by Ron McGeary 
Lesson #111: Imperatives Part 4: Negatives - “Don’t…”
Can you remember what Imperatives are? That’s right, it’s when we use a verb as an instruction or a command to basically tell someone to do something. And can you remember how we form these in Hindi? We actually have three different ways of doing it, one for each of the ways of saying ‘You’ - आप aap, तुम tum and तू too. So for example, using the verb खाना khaanaa - To eat, we’d say…
खाइए khaaie - Please eat, or खाओ khaao - Eat, or खा khaa - Eat!
This should just be revision, but if you’re confused about this, or the about differences between the three words above, then be sure to read back over Lesson #75: Imperatives Part 1, Lesson #77: Imperatives Part 2 and Lesson #80 Imperatives Part 3.
Today we’re going to learn how to turn these Imperatives into the negative case. This is just adding the word ‘don’t’! So we’ll learn how to say something like ‘Don’t do that’, ‘Don’t go’, ‘Don’t bring food’ etc. So are you ready to get straight into it? अच्छा acchaa - great!
All you need to know is that we use the word न na to mean ‘Don’t’ for the आप aap case and the word मत mat to mean ‘Don’t’ for the तुम tum and तू too cases. Both these words usually go just behind the verb. And that’s all you need to know really! How easy is that hey? Let me show you some examples…
शब्दकोश को न पढ़िए shabdkosh ko na parhie
- Please don’t read the dictionary
Can you see what we’ve done here? We’ve used the verb पढ़ना parhnaa in the आप aap imperative to give us पढ़िए parhie - Please read. Adding the न na just behind changes it to ‘Please don’t read’.
Here we also use the Postpostition को ko to show that we are talking about a specific dictionary rather than just dictionaries in general! Did you follow that? Ready for another example?
प्रेम को अख़बार मत दो prem ko akhbaar mat do
- Don’t give the newspaper to Prem
This time we’ve just used मत दो mat do to mean ‘Don’t give’. (Remember that in the तुम tum case देना denaa is irregular and becomes दो do) Can you see how easy this is?
मेज़ पर मत बैठ mez par mat baith
- Don’t sit on the table!
Here we’re using the verb बैठना baithnaa in the most informal तू too case. Imagine a Mother shouting a her child to get off from the table! Ready for some more examples?
दरवाज़े को न बन्द कीजिए darvaaze ko na band keejie
- Please don’t close the door
The word बन्द band means ‘closed’, and so बन्द करना band karnaa means ‘to close’. (Remember here that the verb करना karnaa is Irregular in the आप aap imperative - we say कीजिए keejie).
मेरा पानी मत पियो meraa paanee mat piyo
- Don’t drink my water
Remember that पीना peenaa - To drink becomes पियो piyo in the तुम tum imperative!
मत दौड़ mat daur - Don’t run!
मत बोल mat bol - Don’t speak!
Can you follow each of the examples above? Make sure you can spot which form of the Imperative we are using each time! Be sure to ask me in a comment below if you have any questions. Are you ready for a few more final examples for today?
मेरे घर में सिगरेट न पीजिए mere ghar men sigaret na peejie
- Please don’t smoke in my house
In Hindi we literally say सिगरेट पीना sigaret peenaa - ‘To drink a cigarette’ to mean ‘To smoke a cigarette’. Weird hey!
अभी दुकान मत जाओ abhee dukaan mat jaao
- Don’t go to the shop now
Wow ok! That’s it for now. How’s that been? Can you follow each of the sentences? Have you got any questions? Leave a comment just below and let me know. Try and make so of your own sentences like this!
Imperatives Part 1 Imperatives Part 2
