Urdu Grammar: Build Your First Sentences

آئیے اردو کے آسان جملے بنائیں۔

One small word can finish a sentence

یہ پانی ہے۔

yeh paanee hai. — This is water.

You have named something, pointed to it and made a complete sentence. Now change پانی to دودھ:

یہ دودھ ہے۔ — yeh doodh hai. — This is milk.

This chapter helps you build sentences like these, introduce yourself, ask simple questions and say that something is not true. We will stay with am, is and are. Action patterns such as “I read every day” and “I am reading” work differently and come later.

Our reading help uses aa, ee and oo for long vowels. It cannot show every Urdu sound exactly. In words such as میں، ہوں، ہیں, the n is a cue for a nasal vowel, not necessarily a separate n consonant.

1. Put am, is or are near the end

English says “This is water.” The Urdu pattern is closer to “This water is.”

یہ پانی ہے۔

This is a statement with a description or identity, not an action with an object. Do not worry about grammatical labels yet: keep the sentence ending in its place.

Try changing the middle:

• یہ چائے ہے۔ — yeh chaaye hai. — This is tea.
• یہ میرا گھر ہے۔ — yeh meraa ghar hai. — This is my house.
• یہ نئی کتاب ہے۔ — yeh naee kitaab hai. — This is a new book.

Urdu has no compulsory equivalent of English “a” in every sentence. ایک — ek means “one” and can be used when you want to introduce one item, but you do not need to insert it everywhere English uses “a.”

2. Choose the person, then choose the ending

Start with آپ when speaking to an adult you do not know well. It is a useful respectful default. تم fits many familiar relationships, but the right choice depends on the relationship and situation.

You may also encounter تو — too, with ہے — hai. It can express intimacy, appear in prayer or poetry, or sound insulting in the wrong setting. Beginners do not need it as their everyday default.

A useful difference from English

وہ can mean he, she or that. It does not itself tell you someone's gender. Other words and context may do that. In the plural, the same spelling can mean they or those.

یہ also serves both singular and plural meanings. The ending helps:

• یہ کتاب ہے۔ — yeh kitaab hai. — This is a book.
• یہ کتابیں ہیں۔ — yeh kitaabein hain. — These are books.

3. Say how someone is

The word خوش — khush — happy stays the same in these examples, so you can focus on the endings.

وہ خوش ہیں can also respectfully refer to one person. Respectful agreement is another reason that ہیں does not always mean there is more than one person.

You can replace خوش with یہاں — yahaan — here:

میں یہاں ہوں۔ — main yahaan hoon. — I am here.

4. Add not: نہیں

For these simple sentences, place نہیں — naheen — not before the final form of “be.”

Read the first negative aloud:

yeh doodh naheen hai.

The useful pattern is subject + information + naheen + ending. Everyday speech sometimes omits parts that context supplies, but keeping the full form is a clear way to learn.

5. Ask a yes-or-no question

Put کیا — kyaa at the start of a statement:

یہ چائے ہے۔ — yeh chaaye hai. — This is tea.

کیا یہ چائے ہے؟ — kyaa yeh chaaye hai? — Is this tea?

Another example:

کیا آپ یہاں ہیں؟ — kyaa aap yahaan hain? — Are you here?

You can answer politely with جی ہاں — jee haan — yes or جی نہیں — jee naheen — no.

• جی ہاں، یہ چائے ہے۔ — jee haan, yeh chaaye hai. — Yes, this is tea.
• جی نہیں، یہ دودھ ہے۔ — jee naheen, yeh doodh hai. — No, this is milk.

You may hear a statement turned into a question just by tone of voice. The opening کیا makes the question especially clear for a beginner.

6. What, who and where

Notice the two jobs of کیا:

• کیا یہ پانی ہے؟ asks Is this water?
• یہ کیا ہے؟ asks What is this?

The word order changes the question you are asking. Do not translate every کیا as “what.”

7. A four-line exchange to practise

These are practice sentences, not an extract from a story.

آپ کا نام کیا ہے؟

aap kaa naam kyaa hai? — What is your name?

میرا نام سارہ ہے۔

meraa naam Saarah hai. — My name is Sarah.

کیا آپ یہاں ہیں؟

kyaa aap yahaan hain? — Are you here?

جی ہاں، میں یہاں ہوں۔

jee haan, main yahaan hoon. — Yes, I am here.

For now, learn آپ کا نام as a useful phrase. Possessive forms such as کا/کی/کے depend on the thing being described, not simply on whether its owner is male or female.

8. Three easy mistakes to catch

Using hai with everything. Pair میں with ہوں, آپ with ہیں and تم with ہو.

Putting the ending in the English position. In these sentences, “This is water” becomes یہ پانی ہے, with ہے at the end.

Assuming woh always means he. It can refer to a woman, a man, an object or several people. Read the rest of the sentence.

Practice: build, change, answer

A. Fill the gaps

1. میں یہاں ___۔
2. آپ خوش ___۔
3. یہ پانی ___۔
4. تم یہاں ___۔
5. یہ کتابیں ___۔

B. Change the sentence

6. Make this negative: یہ چائے ہے۔
7. Ask whether this is water: یہ پانی ہے۔
8. Ask where the book is.

C. Say it in Urdu

9. We are happy.
10. Who is that?

Answers

1. ہوں — hoon
2. ہیں — hain
3. ہے — hai
4. ہو — ho
5. ہیں — hain
6. یہ چائے نہیں ہے۔ — yeh chaaye naheen hai.
7. کیا یہ پانی ہے؟ — kyaa yeh paanee hai?
8. کتاب کہاں ہے؟ — kitaab kahaan hai?
9. ہم خوش ہیں۔ — ham khush hain.
10. وہ کون ہے؟ — woh kaun hai?

Take one pattern with you

Choose میں ___ ہوں or یہ ___ ہے. Fill it with a word you know, read it aloud, then turn it into a question or a negative. You are doing more than memorizing a table: you are making the sentence do a new job.

Further learning

For another explanation, see Michigan State University's Basic Urdu: Personal Pronouns with “To Be”. The explanations and exercises on this page are newly written for LangFastPro.