Hindi Passive: Past Participle

In Hindi, the passive voice relies on two main parts. First, you have the main verb in its perfective participle form. Second, you have the auxiliary verb jaana (to go). Wait, jaana? Yes! In this context, it doesn't mean 'to go' physically. It acts as a helper to show the action happened to someone or something. Think of jaana as the sidekick that does all the heavy lifting. The main verb stays in its past form, while jaana changes to match the tense. It is like a grammar traffic light; it tells you which way the focus is flowing. If the object is feminine, both the main verb and jaana become feminine. If it's plural, they both become plural. It’s all about harmony and agreement.

1. 1Creating the passive is a simple four-step process. Follow these steps to build any passive sentence:
2. 2Identify the main verb stem (e.g., likh for to write).
3. 3Change the stem into a Perfective Participle. Add -aa, -ee, or -e based on the object's gender and number. For likh, you get likha, likhee, or likhe.
4. 4Add the verb jaana immediately after the participle.
5. 5Conjugate jaana for the tense you need (past, present, or future).
6. 6For example, to say 'The letter was written':
7. 7Object: khat (Letter - Masculine)
8. 8Main verb: likha (Written)
9. 9Auxiliary: gaya (Past tense of jaana for masculine singular)
10. 10Result: khat likha gaya.

There are specific times when the passive voice is your best friend. Use it when you don't know who did the action. For instance, 'The window was broken' (khidkee tod dee gayee). You use it in formal settings like news reports or official documents. 'The decision was taken' sounds much more official than 'We took the decision.' It is also great for being polite. If you want to tell someone their food is ready, you might say 'Food has been prepared' (khaana banaaya gaya hai). Another unique Hindi use is the 'Inability' construction. If you add se to the person and use a negative passive, it means they physically can't do it. mujhse ye kaam nahi kiya jaata means 'I am unable to do this work.' It’s a very common way to express struggle without sounding like you're just lazy.

Don't overdo it! Hindi speakers love the active voice for daily life. If you are telling a friend you ate an apple, don't say 'The apple was eaten by me.' That sounds like a robot wrote it. Avoid the passive when the doer is the most important part of the story. Also, be careful with intransitive verbs (verbs that don't take an object, like 'to sleep' or 'to sit'). While Hindi technically allows a 'neutral' passive for these, it is rare and usually only found in literature. Stick to active voice for personal stories. Yes, even native speakers mess this up by being too formal sometimes, so keep it natural.

The biggest trap is gender agreement. Remember, the verb matches the object, not the person doing the action. If a man says 'The tea was made,' the verb must be feminine because 'tea' (chaay) is feminine. You would say chaay banaayee gayee, not banaaya gaya. Another mistake is forgetting to use jaana. Without it, you just have a past tense sentence that might not make sense. Also, learners often try to translate the English 'by' literally using dvaara. While ke dvaara is correct, it often sounds too heavy. In casual speech, we often just drop the agent entirely. If you use ke dvaara in every sentence, you'll sound like a 19th-century textbook.

Don't confuse the passive with the ne construction. The ne construction is active voice in the past tense. In maine khaana khaaya (I ate food), you are the subject. In the passive khaana khaaya gaya (Food was eaten), the food is the subject. Another similar pattern is the 'State' participle. darvaaza khula hai means 'The door is open' (a state). darvaaza khola gaya means 'The door was opened' (an action). One describes how things look, the other describes what happened to them. Think of it like a photo versus a video clip.