Bengali grammar
Bengali sentence structure — building a basic sentence
Bengali follows Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) order. Adjectives come before the noun, and case suffixes attach after it.
I eat rice
আমি ভাত খাই
āmi bhāt khāi
Literally "I rice eat" — the verb always comes last.
The big house
বড় বাড়ি
bôṛo bāṛi
Adjectives precede the noun, same order as English.
to the market
বাজারে
bājāre
Case suffixes attach after the noun, the reverse of an English preposition.
She is reading a book
সে বই পড়ছে
śe boi pôṛche
Subject → object → verb, in that fixed order.
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More Bengali grammar lessons
Bengali personal pronouns
Bengali has formal, familiar, and intimate forms of "you". Pronouns also change with verb conjugation.
Bengali present tense verbs
Bengali present tense endings change by person rather than by gender (Bengali verbs don't mark gender at all). Conjugated here for করা (korā, "to do").
Bengali negation with না
Unlike Hindi, Bengali places its negator না (nā) after the verb, not before it. নেই (nei) is used specifically for negative existence and possession.
Bengali case suffixes
Bengali attaches short case suffixes directly to the end of a noun instead of using separate preposition words.
Bengali question words
Bengali wh-questions use a fixed set of question words placed where the answer would go.
Bengali numbers 1–10
The Bengali numerals 1 through 10.