The compound types Hindi inherited from Sanskrit
I can break a long compound into its parts and guess its meaning
Look at these examples. Can you spot the grammar pattern?
राष्ट्रपति ने भाषण दिया।
The President gave a speech.
मेरे माता-पिता गाँव में रहते हैं।
My parents live in the village.
आत्मनिर्भर बनना ज़रूरी है।
It is necessary to become self-reliant.
Pay attention to the highlighted parts. What do they have in common?
| तत्पुरुष | the first part modifies the second | राजकुमार - king's son |
| द्वंद्व | two equal parts joined | माता-पिता - parents |
| कर्मधारय | adjective plus noun | महाराजा - great king |
| बहुव्रीहि | describes something outside itself | चतुर्भुज - four-armed (a name for Vishnu) |
Formal Hindi, headlines and official prose are full of these. Being able to split राष्ट्रपति into राष्ट्र plus पति, or आत्मनिर्भर into आत्म plus निर्भर, turns an unreadable word into a guessable one.
The paired type is not formal at all: माता-पिता, भाई-बहन, रोटी-कपड़ा, आना-जाना. These are ordinary conversation.
Apply this grammar in B2 course exercises
Practice ExercisesTreating every long word as unanalysable vocabulary.
Long compounds treated as single unanalysable words
Split them: rashtra-pati, atma-nirbhar.
Assuming all compounds are formal
dvandva pairs like bhai-bahan are everyday speech.
राष्ट्रपति ने भाषण दिया।
The President gave a speech.
rashtra plus pati: head of the nation.
मेरे माता-पिता गाँव में रहते हैं।
My parents live in the village.
A dvandva compound, as ordinary as otets-mat.
आत्मनिर्भर बनना ज़रूरी है।
It is necessary to become self-reliant.
atma plus nirbhar, split like samo plus derzhets.
The check for this topic is still being prepared
Ready-made hints are free
Practice in course
Apply this grammar in B2 course exercises
Kamta Prasad Guru's grammar, the standard prescriptive reference for Hindi morphology and syntax.
The Government of India standard for Devanagari spelling, followed for all written forms here.