The Present Habitual Tense

Today we'll learn how to conjugate Urdu verbs in the present habitual tense. This tense refers to phrases such as "I do", "I eat", and so on (as opposed to the present continuous tense: "I am doing", "I am eating", etc.) Urdu verbs in their infinitive form all have the suffix "na". Here are a few examples:

• karna = to do
• peena = to drink
• bataana = to tell

We'll look at some more verbs in our next lesson, but for now, let's focus on the verb "karna" ("to do"). To conjugate a verb in the present habitual tense, first we replace the "na" suffix with the appropriate ending (which depends on whether the subject is masculine or feminine). Then we add the appropriate conjugation of the verb "hona". The example below shows how to conjugate the verb "karna" in the present habitual tense.

Masculine:

• main karta hoon = I do
• aap karte hain = you do
• tum karte ho = you do
• tu karta hai = you do
• yeh/voh karta hai = he/it does
• ham karte hain = we do
• yeh/voh karte hain = they do

Feminine:

• main karti hoon = I do
• aap karti hain = you do
• tum karti ho = you do
• tu karti hai = you do
• yeh/voh karti hai = she/it does
• ham karte hain = we do
• yeh/voh karti hain = they do

You can see that in the masculine case, the suffix "na" is replaced by either "ta" or "te" (depending on the pronoun). In the feminine case, the suffix "na" is always replaced with the ending "ti", except for the pronoun "ham" (which uses the ending "te" instead).