नहीं is the ordinary neutral negator of finite Hindi statements: रीना आज नहीं आएगी “Rina will not come today.” It normally stands immediately before the predicate or predicate complex. To deny only one constituent—today, not tomorrow; this book, not that one—Hindi combines placement, prosodic stress, and an explicit alternative.
Hindi has other negative forms for other structures: मत prohibits an action, न is common in subordinate, formal, and literary environments, and words such as कोई नहीं build negative-indefinite meanings. Learning where नहीं belongs is therefore a question of syntax and scope, not simply replacing English not.
Neutral clause negation
Put नहीं before the finite predicate:
रीना आज आएगी।
rīnā āj āegī.
Rina will come today.
रीना आज नहीं आएगी।
rīnā āj nahīṃ āegī.
Rina will not come today.
हमने वह संदेश पढ़ा।
hamne vah sandeś paṛhā.
We read that message.
हमने वह संदेश नहीं पढ़ा।
hamne vah sandeś nahīṃ paṛhā.
We did not read that message.
The negator precedes आएगी and पढ़ा, while ordinary subject, object, and time phrases stay earlier. This gives wide scope over the event: the coming or reading is denied.
For the broad word-order pattern, see negation and adverb placement.
Keep predicate complexes together
With progressive, perfect, modal, or compound predicates, neutral नहीं normally precedes the whole complex:
सिया अभी काम नहीं कर रही है।
siyā abhī kām nahīṃ kar rahī hai.
Siya is not working right now.
पत्र अभी तक नहीं पहुँचा है।
patr abhī tak nahīṃ pahũcā hai.
The letter has not arrived yet.
मैं इतना भारी बक्सा नहीं उठा सकता।
maĩ itnā bhārī baksā nahīṃ uṭhā saktā.
I cannot lift such a heavy box. (male speaker)
In neutral order, do not insert नहीं between कर रही and है, between पहुँचा and है, or between उठा and सकता. The negator scopes over the combined predicate.
Auxiliary omission is construction-specific
In a simple present habitual negative, neutral Hindi often omits present है / हैं:
कबीर सुबह चाय पीता है।
kabīr subah cāy pītā hai.
Kabir drinks tea in the morning.
कबीर सुबह चाय नहीं पीता।
kabīr subah cāy nahīṃ pītā.
Kabir does not drink tea in the morning.
Retaining है—कबीर चाय नहीं पीता है—is also found, especially with contrast, regional preferences, or deliberate emphasis, but it is not necessary in the neutral short statement. Do not generalize the omission to every construction. Progressives normally retain the auxiliary (काम नहीं कर रही है), present perfects retain it (नहीं पहुँचा है), and full neutral nominal predicates normally retain it (वह डॉक्टर नहीं है), although conversational context can license elliptical वह डॉक्टर नहीं.
Wide scope and narrow correction
Sentence negation denies the proposition:
अर्जुन ने टिकट नहीं खरीदा।
arjun ne ṭikaṭ nahīṃ xarīdā.
Arjun did not buy the ticket.
To deny one constituent while preserving the rest of the event, place the contrast immediately before नहीं and state the replacement:
अर्जुन ने टिकट आज नहीं, कल खरीदा।
arjun ne ṭikaṭ āj nahīṃ, kal xarīdā.
Arjun bought the ticket not today, but yesterday/tomorrow, depending on context.
अर्जुन ने बस का टिकट नहीं, ट्रेन का टिकट खरीदा।
arjun ne bas kā ṭikaṭ nahīṃ, ṭren kā ṭikaṭ xarīdā.
Arjun bought not a bus ticket but a train ticket.
In the first, only आज is rejected; buying still occurred. In the second, the kind of ticket is corrected. The explicit alternative prevents the listener from interpreting नहीं as wide sentence negation.
Subject contrast works similarly:
फ़ाइल रीना ने नहीं, मोहन ने भेजी।
fāil rīnā ne nahīṃ, mohan ne bhejī.
It was not Rina but Mohan who sent the file.
The feminine unmarked object फ़ाइल still controls perfective भेजी. Focus does not alter the agreement system.
Scope with adverbs and particles
मीरा सिर्फ़ आज दफ़्तर नहीं आएगी।
mīrā sirf āj daftar nahīṃ āegī.
Meera will not come to the office only today. (context needed: she may be absent only today, or ‘only today’ may contrast with other days)
The placement of सिर्फ़ and spoken stress can make this ambiguous. Clear writing spells out the intended contrast:
मीरा केवल आज दफ़्तर नहीं आएगी; कल से वह नियमित आएगी।
mīrā keval āj daftar nahīṃ āegī; kal se vah niyamit āegī.
Meera will be absent from the office only today; from tomorrow she will come regularly.
मीरा आज केवल दफ़्तर नहीं जाएगी; बैंक भी जाएगी।
mīrā āj keval daftar nahīṃ jāegī; baiṅk bhī jāegī.
Today Meera will not go only to the office; she will go to the bank too.
The first narrows the negative to one day. The second denies “only the office,” not office-going itself. Hindi and English both allow scope ambiguity; word order and a continuation resolve it.
Direct and polite dialogue turns
तुम आज बैठक में आ रहे हो? — नहीं, मैं आज शहर में नहीं हूँ।
tum āj baiṭhak meṃ ā rahe ho? — nahīṃ, maĩ āj śahar meṃ nahīṃ hū̃.
Are you coming to the meeting today? — No, I’m not in town today.
क्या आप कल हमारे साथ नहीं चलेंगे? — माफ़ कीजिए, कल मैं उपलब्ध नहीं हूँ।
kyā āp kal hamāre sāth nahīṃ caleṃge? — māf kījie, kal maĩ uplabdh nahīṃ hū̃.
Won’t you come with us tomorrow? — I’m sorry, I’m not available tomorrow. (polite)
The second is a negative question used as a direct contrast: the speaker expected or hoped the addressee would come. नहीं remains ordinary syntactic negation; politeness comes from आप, honorific agreement, and माफ़ कीजिए.
नहीं is not a prohibitive
तुम यहाँ नहीं बैठते।
tum yahā̃ nahīṃ baiṭhte.
You do not sit here. (statement about behavior)
यहाँ मत बैठो।
yahā̃ mat baiṭho.
Do not sit here. (direct prohibition)
The first describes a fact or habit; the second tells someone not to act. Using मत in an ordinary statement confuses clause type, while using नहीं for a direct command can sound like a statement rather than a prohibition.
Common Mistakes
रीना आएगी नहीं, आज बैठक में।
rīnā āegī nahīṃ, āj baiṭhak meṃ.
Rina will not come—to today’s meeting. (marked contrastive order with an afterthought)
✅ रीना आज बैठक में नहीं आएगी।
rīnā āj baiṭhak meṃ nahīṃ āegī.
Rina will not come to the meeting today.
सिया ऑनलाइन पढ़ रही नहीं है; वह वीडियो देख रही है।
siyā onlāin paṛh rahī nahīṃ hai; vah vīḍiyo dekh rahī hai.
Siya is not studying online; she is watching a video. (marked corrective focus)
✅ सिया अभी ऑनलाइन नहीं पढ़ रही है।
siyā abhī onlāin nahīṃ paṛh rahī hai.
Siya is not studying online right now. (neutral order)
वह डॉक्टर नहीं।
vah ḍokṭar nahīṃ.
He/She is not a doctor. (natural conversational ellipsis when the context is clear)
✅ वह डॉक्टर नहीं है।
vah ḍokṭar nahīṃ hai.
He/She is not a doctor. (full neutral form)
❌ मैं कल वहाँ मत जाऊँगा।
Incorrect — मत is prohibitive and cannot negate an ordinary first-person future statement.
✅ मैं कल वहाँ नहीं जाऊँगा।
maĩ kal vahā̃ nahīṃ jāū̃gā.
I will not go there tomorrow. (male speaker)
Key Takeaways
Neutral नहीं precedes the predicate domain. Explicit alternatives create narrow constituent correction; otherwise negation normally has clause-wide scope. Present habitual negatives often omit है, but progressives, perfects, and copular predicates follow their own auxiliary patterns. मत prohibits, while नहीं states that a proposition is false.
Related Topics
- नहीं in simple finite clausesA1 — Negate ordinary Hindi statements with नहीं while keeping predicate-final order, agreement, tense, and the distinction from न and मत.
- नहीं with the present copulaA1 — Negate present identity, property, location, existence, and possession with नहीं plus हूँ, हो, है, or हैं.
- नहीं across habitual progressive and perfectiveA2 — Place नहीं correctly across Hindi habitual, progressive, perfective, and present-perfect predicates while preserving their different auxiliary patterns.
- Negation and adverb placementA2 — Place नहीं and Hindi adverbs according to predicate scope, constituent contrast, and the information structure of the clause.
- मत in negative imperativesA2 — Form direct negative commands with मत plus an imperative or infinitive form, and distinguish them from factual नहीं and formal prohibitive न.
- कभी नहीं कोई नहीं कुछ नहींB1 — Build ‘never,’ ‘nobody,’ and ‘nothing’ readings by combining negative-sensitive indefinites with नहीं and interpreting multiple negatives as one semantic negation.