UP Police Constable · Bite-size lessons

Ling, Vachan, Karak (लिंग, वचन, कारक)

About 6 min · General Hindi (सामान्य हिंदी) · English

Time worked out from the lesson's 442 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.

Ling (gender), Vachan (number) and Karak (case) form the grammatical backbone of Hindi sentence construction. These three concepts are tested in UP Police Constable exams through error correction, sentence completion, and direct identification questions. Mastery over these topics ensures that you can quickly spot gender-number disagreements, identify case markers (विभक्ति चिह्न), and understand how nouns, pronouns, and verbs interact in Hindi sentences.

Key ideas

• Ling (लिंग) refers to grammatical gender in Hindi. Every noun is either masculine (पुल्लिंग) or feminine (स्त्रीलिंग). There is no neuter gender in Hindi, unlike Sanskrit or English. Gender determines the form of adjectives, verbs, and pronouns used with that noun.
• Vachan (वचन) denotes number — singular (एकवचन) or plural (बहुवचन). Hindi plurals are formed by changing noun endings or adding suffixes. Some nouns remain unchanged in plural form, and the context or verb reveals number.
• Karak (कारक) is the grammatical case that shows the relationship of a noun or pronoun to other words in a sentence. Hindi has eight karaks: karta, karm, karan, sampradaan, apaadaan, sambandh, adhikaran, and sambodhan. Each karak is marked by specific postpositions called vibhakti chinh (विभक्ति चिह्न).
• Ling-Vachan agreement is critical: adjectives, verbs, and pronouns must agree in gender and number with the noun they modify or refer to. Disagreement is a common source of grammatical errors tested in exams.
• Gender in Hindi is not always predictable from meaning. Words ending in आ (like लड़का, कमरा) are usually masculine; words ending in ई or इया (like लड़की, चिड़िया) are typically feminine, but there are many exceptions (जल, आग, रात, etc.).

Watch out for

• Wrong thinking: रात ends in त, but students confuse it or assume रात is masculine.
• Correct fix: रात is feminine. "रात अच्छी थी" not "रात अच्छा था."
• Wrong: "लड़के खाना खाता है।" (plural subject, singular verb)

Quick reference

• Two genders only: Masculine (पुल्लिंग) and Feminine (स्त्रीलिंग). No neuter in Hindi.
• Plural masculine आ → ए; feminine ई → इयाँ; feminine आ → एँ.
• Eight Karaks: Karta (ने), Karm (को), Karan (से), Sampradan (के लिए/को), Apaadaan (से), Sambandh (का/की/के), Adhikaran (में/पर), Sambodhan (हे/ओ).
• Agreement rule: Adjectives, verbs, pronouns must match noun's gender and number.
• Common exceptions memorize: रात, आग, बात (feminine); राजा, योद्धा (masculine despite आ).

Check yourself: 3 questions

This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 18 Oct 2026: an AI-assisted check of this note against cited sources; the errors it found were corrected that day. Some errors may remain. The questions are from Shishya's validated question bank.

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