3.1 Nouns: Masculine and Feminine

Urdu nouns are either masculine or feminine. The gender of each noun is given in the vocabulary list. For each gender there are two types of nouns, as shown below:

Why do you need to know the gender of each noun? Remember, in Urdu, verb conjugations must agree with the subject’s gender, and you will see that adjectives and possessives also agree with the gender of their nouns. You also must know the gender of a noun in order to form its plural correctly (see GR 3.2).
The vast majority of nouns ending in ا (Alif) are masculine, and the vast majority of nouns ending in ی are feminine. There are, however, a few exceptions. Here are three examples of masculine nouns that look like feminine nouns:

And here are some feminine nouns that look like masculine nouns:

You just have to memorize which is which.

Nouns: Singular and Plural

The plural ending for a noun depends on the gender of the noun. Memorize the chart below:

3.3 Adjectives

There are two kinds of adjectives in Urdu: those that change to show agreement in gender and number, and those that do not. Adjectives that can change follow the pattern of agreement below:

Thus the adjective  اچھا(good)changes to show agreement, but the adjective تیز (fast) never changes.

3.4 Possessive Pronouns

Possessive pronouns in Urdu function just like adjectives: they agree with the thing possessed in gender and number. Here is a table of the possessive pronouns (given in masculine singular form).

[In the chart below: make sure no letters are getting cut off by the table cell borders. This is particularly a problem with Kaaf.]

Note that the possessive pronouns reflect the gender and number of the thing possessed, not the gender and number of the possessor. For example, the Urdu phraseاُسکی روٹی could mean either “his bread” or “her bread” or “its bread.” The possessive pronoun is feminine to reflect the gender of روٹی
Examples of possessive-noun agreement with میرا

  3.5 کا – کے – کی

How do we express the possessive with regular nouns or proper nouns? (Examples: “girl’s book”, “Rani’s book”, “Ali’s store”, “house’s door”). We addکے ، کا or کی after any noun or proper noun. These function just like the “apostrophe s” (‘s) in English. Choose کے ، کا or کی to agree with the gender and number of the thing possessed (not of the possessor).
Note: کے ، کا and کی are postpositions: they are written after the “possessor” noun.

Here are some examples:

3.6 اپنا   
“One’s Own”

Urdu has a special possessive pronoun,
اپنا,

meaning “one’s own” which must be used when the subject of a sentence and the possessor are the same. Like all other possessive pronouns,

اپنا
changes to reflect the gender and number of the thing possessed.

Examples:

In the third sentence above, if you use اُسکی instead of اپنیthe meaning changes as follows:

  3.7 Emphatic ہی

Urdu has an emphatic particle,, which is placed right after the word you want to emphasize.
Often ہیhas an exclusive meaning, and may be translated as “only” or “just.” 

Many words can form special contractions with ہی .
Here are a few examples:

  3.8 سکنا =”To be able to “

This is the formula for “to be able to V” (where V is any verb):