Verbs (क्रियापद)

Verbs are the engine of every sentence. In Marathi grammar, the verb — called क्रियापद — is the word that expresses an action, a state, or an occurrence. Without a verb, a collection of words is just a list; the verb is what makes a sentence complete. Before you can master tenses, adjectives used as participles, or sentence formation, you must understand how Marathi verbs are built, classified, and conjugated.

Marathi verbs are highly systematic. They are built from a root called the धातू (dhatu), to which various suffixes are added to express tense, aspect, mood, person, number, and gender. This single fact explains why mastering the धातू and a handful of rules unlocks hundreds of verb forms automatically.

Throughout this lesson you will find worked examples, tables, and practice questions. Use the Verb Conjugation tool to generate full paradigms for any Marathi verb, and the Tense Practice tool to drill conjugated forms until they feel natural.

What Is a Verb? — क्रियापद म्हणजे काय?

The Marathi word क्रियापद comes from क्रिया (action) + पद (word). A verb expresses what the subject does (जातो — goes), what state the subject is in (आहे — is), or what happens to the subject (पडले — fell). Every grammatical Marathi sentence must have a verb.

Marathi is a Subject–Object–Verb (SOV) language. The verb always appears at or near the end of the sentence. For example: राम आंबा खातो — Ram (S) mango (O) eats (V). This word-order rule is one of the most important things for English speakers to internalise.

The Root Form — धातू

Every Marathi verb descends from a root called the धातू (dhatu). The dhatu is the irreducible core meaning of the verb. It cannot stand alone as a full verb — it always needs at least one suffix.

To form the infinitive (सामान्यरूप or कृदंत), we typically add -णे to the dhatu: कर् + णे = करणे (to do), जा + णे = जाणे (to go), बघ + णे = बघणे (to see). This infinitive form is what you will find in a Marathi dictionary.

Transitive and Intransitive Verbs — सकर्मक आणि अकर्मक क्रियापद

One of the most important classifications of Marathi verbs is whether they are transitive (सकर्मक) or intransitive (अकर्मक). This classification directly affects how past-tense sentences are constructed and how the verb agrees with its subject or object.

सकर्मक क्रियापद — Transitive Verbs

A transitive verb takes a direct object (कर्म). The action passes from the subject to the object. Examples: खाणे (to eat), लिहिणे (to write), पाहणे (to see), विकत घेणे (to buy).

In the simple past tense, transitive verbs in Marathi show ergative alignment: the past-tense verb agrees with the object in gender and number, not the subject. The subject takes the agentive suffix -ने / -नी.

अकर्मक क्रियापद — Intransitive Verbs

An intransitive verb does not take a direct object. The action remains with the subject. Examples: जाणे (to go), येणे (to come), झोपणे (to sleep), हसणे (to laugh), पडणे (to fall).

In the simple past tense, intransitive verbs agree with the subject in gender and number, like a more familiar nominative alignment.

Verb Conjugation — क्रियापद साधणे

Marathi verb conjugation depends on four factors: tense/aspect, person (first, second, third), number (singular, plural), and gender (masculine, feminine, neuter). The full system is explored in the Tenses lesson. Here we give the present tense paradigm for the high-frequency verb करणे (to do) as a model.

You can generate the full conjugation table — past, future, habitual, continuous — for any verb instantly using the Verb Conjugation tool.

Auxiliaries and Compound Verbs

Marathi makes frequent use of auxiliary verbs (सहाय्यक क्रियापद) to form compound tenses and moods. The most important auxiliaries are:

• असणे — to be (present: आहे, आहेस, आहात, आहोत)
• होणे — to become / happen (past: झाले, झाली, झाला)
• येणे — to come (used in experiential constructions: मला येते — I know how to)

Compound verbs (संयुक्त क्रियापद) combine a main verb stem with an auxiliary to express nuances like completion, sudden action, benefit, or compulsion. For example: खाऊन टाकणे (to finish eating), जाऊन येणे (to go and come back), लिहून काढणे (to write out).

Voice — वाच्य

Marathi verbs can appear in three voices (वाच्य):

• कर्तरी वाच्य — Active voice: the subject performs the action.
• कर्मणी वाच्य — Passive voice: the object becomes the grammatical subject.
• भाव वाच्य — Impersonal voice: neither subject nor object is highlighted; the action or state is expressed impersonally.

This topic is covered in depth in the Active and Passive Voice lesson. For now, note that the transitive/intransitive distinction you learned above determines which voice forms are available for a verb.

Worked Examples

Step-by-Step: Conjugating a Marathi Verb

1. Identify the dhatu: Remove -णे from the infinitive. बोलणे → बोल्.
2. Choose the tense stem: For simple present, add -त to the dhatu: बोलत.
3. Add the agreement suffix: For first-person masculine singular (मी), add -ो: बोलतो.
4. Check transitivity in the past: If the verb is transitive, put the agent in the ergative case and make the verb agree with the object.
5. Verify with a tool: Paste your conjugated sentence into the Tense Practice tool to confirm the form is correct.

Common Verb Categories

Beyond transitive and intransitive, Marathi verbs can be grouped by their functional role:

• नामधातू — Denominative verbs: verbs formed from nouns or adjectives (लाल होणे — to turn red, from लाल red).
• इच्छार्थक क्रियापद — Desiderative verbs: expressing desire to perform an action (खाऊ वाटणे — to feel like eating).
• प्रेरणार्थक क्रियापद — Causative verbs: making someone do something (करवणे — to cause to do, from करणे).
• अनुकरणात्मक क्रियापद — Onomatopoeic verbs: formed from sound words (खडखडणे — to rattle).

Practice Questions

Verb Moods — क्रियापदाचे अर्थ

Beyond tense, Marathi verbs carry mood information. Mood expresses the speaker's attitude toward the action — whether it is a fact, a wish, a command, or a hypothetical. The most important moods are:

• विध्यर्थ (Imperative): Commands and requests. Formed by the bare dhatu (singular informal) or dhatu + -ा (plural/polite). Example: ये (come, inf. sg.), या (come, polite pl.).
• इच्छार्थ (Optative / Hortative): Wishes and suggestions. Formed with -ऊया / -ऊ. Example: जाऊया (let us go).
• संभाव्यार्थ (Potential): Possibility. Often uses the auxiliary शकणे (to be able). Example: तो येऊ शकतो. (He can come.)
• शक्यार्थ (Conditional): "If … then …" constructions. Example: जर तू आलास तर मी खूश होईन. (If you come, I will be happy.)

Participles — कृदंत

Marathi verbs form a rich set of participles (कृदंत) that function as verbal adjectives or verbal adverbs. The four main participles are:

The conjunctive participle (dhatu + -ून) is particularly important for expressing sequences of actions: खाऊन जा (eat and then go), विचार करून उत्तर दे (think and then answer). This construction is fundamental to natural Marathi sentence flow and is explored in the Sentence Formation lesson.

Negative Verb Forms

Negation in Marathi is expressed differently depending on the tense and mood:

• Simple present/past/future negation: Add नाही / नव्हते / नसेल after the verb or at the end: मी जात नाही (I do not go), तो आला नाही (he did not come).
• Imperative negation: Use नको (do not) before the verb stem: जाऊ नको (do not go), बोलू नका (do not speak, plural).
• Ability negation: शकत नाही after the verb: तो येऊ शकत नाही (he cannot come).

Causative Verbs — प्रेरणार्थक क्रियापद

Marathi has a productive system of causative verbs, formed by modifying the dhatu. A causative verb means "to cause someone to do something." The causative suffix is typically -व- inserted after the dhatu:

• करणे (to do) → करवणे (to cause to do / to get done)
• खाणे (to eat) → खाऊ घालणे (to feed / cause to eat)
• शिकणे (to learn) → शिकवणे (to teach / cause to learn)
• पिणे (to drink) → पाजणे (to give to drink / cause to drink)

Understanding causatives is important for advanced Marathi writing and for competitive examinations, where transformation exercises often test your ability to convert a simple verb into its causative form.

Defective Verbs and Experiential Constructions

A special class of Marathi verbs are the "experiential" or "dative subject" constructions, where the experiencer takes the dative case (-ला / -ला) and the verb agrees with the thing experienced rather than the experiencer. These are sometimes called defective verbs because they lack certain forms. Key examples:

• मला भूक लागली. (I am hungry. / Hunger struck me.) — the verb लागली agrees with भूक (hunger, feminine).
• त्याला झोप आली. (He became sleepy. / Sleep came to him.) — verb agrees with झोप (sleep, feminine).
• मला मराठी येते. (I know Marathi. / Marathi comes to me.) — verb agrees with मराठी (feminine).

These constructions look unusual to English speakers because the logical subject (the experiencer) is in the dative, not the nominative. They appear constantly in everyday Marathi speech, so mastering them is essential for fluency.

Common Mistakes

• Confusing the ergative construction: in transitive past sentences, the subject takes -ने or -नी and the verb agrees with the object.
• Using the infinitive -णे form where a finite verb is needed.
• Forgetting that neuter nouns are very common in Marathi and that the verb must reflect neuter gender in agreement.
• Mixing up आहे (is, present) with होते (was, past) — both come from the root अस् / हो but belong to different tenses.

Verb Tense Forms — A Quick Reference

The table below shows the full tense paradigm for the common verb बोलणे (to speak) across the most frequently used tense-aspect combinations, for the third-person masculine singular subject तो (he). For a complete twelve-cell table covering all three tenses and four aspects, visit the Tenses lesson.

High-Frequency Marathi Verbs to Learn First

If you are beginning your Marathi journey, mastering these twenty high-frequency verbs — their dhatu, their transitive / intransitive classification, and their simple past forms — will give you the foundation to build almost any sentence:

• असणे (to be) — intransitive
• होणे (to become / happen) — intransitive
• जाणे (to go) — intransitive
• येणे (to come) — intransitive
• करणे (to do) — transitive
• देणे (to give) — transitive
• घेणे (to take) — transitive
• सांगणे (to tell / say) — transitive
• पाहणे (to see / look) — transitive
• बोलणे (to speak) — intransitive (or transitive with -शी)
• खाणे (to eat) — transitive
• पिणे (to drink) — transitive
• वाचणे (to read) — transitive
• लिहिणे (to write) — transitive
• ऐकणे (to listen) — transitive
• हसणे (to laugh) — intransitive
• रडणे (to cry) — intransitive
• धावणे (to run) — intransitive
• बसणे (to sit) — intransitive
• उठणे (to get up / rise) — intransitive

Use the Verb Conjugation tool to generate the full tense tables for each of these verbs. Drilling them systematically is the single most effective thing you can do to build Marathi verb fluency.

Summary

Marathi verbs (क्रियापद) are built on roots called धातू. They are classified as transitive (सकर्मक) or intransitive (अकर्मक), a distinction that governs past-tense agreement. Verbs conjugate for tense, person, number, and gender. Compound verbs and auxiliaries add expressive nuance. Master the धातू, learn the agreement rules, and use the Verb Conjugation tool for practice.

Your next step is the Tenses lesson, where you will learn how every verb form — present, past, and future — is systematically derived.

Frequently Asked Questions