Adjectives in Marathi

Adjectives are those words which describe nouns.  You are familiar with English adjectives : small, big , tall , short etc. There is a slight difference between English adjectives and Marathi adjectives. English adjectives do not modify themselves for the noun they describe.

For example,  1)Big girl, Big girls.

                              2)Big boy, Big boys.

The adjective “Big” stays unchanged with the gender as well as the multiplicity of the noun.

 In Marathi, this rule is slightly different.

There are two types of adjectives in Marathi. Inflecting adjectives and non-inflecting adjectives. Let us go through each one of them in detail.

Inflecting  adjectives.

Inflecting adjectives change itself to agree with the noun that follows it. Consider following sentences.

Singular case :

Plural case :

Now, how to tell which adjective is inflecting and which is not ?

Generally, adjectives ending with आ(aa) note are inflecting adjectives. For example,all colors in Marathi such as काळा, हिरवा, निळा are inflecting adjectives.Also, the numerals like पहिला ,दुसरा ……are inflecting adjectives.

Non-inflecting adjectives.

These adjectives don’t care about the gender or multiplicity of the noun. They stay as it is; just like English adjectives.

See following sentences :