The Gujarati Past Tense and the Little Word મેં

One feature of Gujarati that surprises learners is that in the past tense, the verb often agrees with the object, not the person doing the action. This pattern is called ergative, and it's shared with Hindi and Punjabi.

The basic idea

With intransitive verbs (no object), the verb agrees with the subject:

• હું ગયો. — I went. (male)
• હું ગઈ. — I went. (female)
• તે આવ્યું. — It (neuter) came.

With transitive verbs (with an object) in the past, the subject takes a special marker, and the verb agrees with the object:

• મેં પુસ્તક વાંચ્યું. — I read the book. (પુસ્તક is neuter, so વાંચ્યું)
• મેં રોટલી ખાધી. — I ate a roti. (રોટલી is feminine, so ખાધી)
• મેં દૂધ પીધું. — I drank milk. (neuter)
• મેં ફિલ્મ જોઈ. — I watched the film. (feminine)
• મેં ચા પીધી. — I drank tea. (feminine)

The speaker's gender does not matter here: a man and a woman both say મેં પુસ્તક વાંચ્યું.

The subject markers

In the past tense with a transitive verb, pronouns take special forms, and nouns add -એ:

Subject	Marked form
હું	મેં
તું	તેં
તે	તેણે
અમે / આપણે	અમે / આપણે (unchanged)
તમે	તમે (unchanged)
તેઓ	તેમણે
રામ	રામે

Examples:

• તેં શું ખાધું? — What did you eat?
• તેણે પત્ર લખ્યો. — He/she wrote a letter. (પત્ર is masculine)
• રામે ગીત ગાયું. — Ram sang a song. (ગીત is neuter)
• તમે શું કર્યું? — What did you do?

Which verbs are which?

• Intransitive (agree with subject): જવું (go), આવવું (come), બેસવું (sit), ઊઠવું (get up), સૂવું (sleep), રહેવું (stay).
• Transitive (agree with object): ખાવું (eat), પીવું (drink), વાંચવું (read), લખવું (write), જોવું (see), કરવું (do), આપવું (give), લેવું (take).

Why it matters

This affects the ending you choose. A sentence like મેં રોટલી ખાધો sounds wrong, because રોટલી is feminine and needs ખાધી. Learning the gender of nouns therefore helps with verbs.

Present and future are simpler

In the present and future, the verb agrees with the subject and the ergative marker is not used: હું ખાઉં છું. હું ખાઈશ.

Practical tips

1. Learn intransitive verbs first, since they're straightforward.
2. For transitive verbs, ask: "What is the object? What is its gender?"
3. Memorise the marked pronouns: મેં, તેં, તેણે.
4. Practise with food: મેં ભાત ખાધો, મેં રોટલી ખાધી, મેં દૂધ પીધું.

Common beginner errors

• Using હું instead of મેં with transitive past.
• Matching the verb to the speaker's gender.
• Forgetting to match the object's gender.

Note on variation

Some spoken varieties simplify or vary these patterns, but the standard forms above are what dictionaries and textbooks teach.

Look up Gujarati verbs with English Gujarati Dictionary →