Three genders and words that grow tails

Because Marathi and Hindi share a script and much vocabulary, it is easy to assume that one is a dialect of the other. It is not, and the differences are greatest exactly where a learner looks for help: in the grammar that holds the words together.

There are three genders, not two. Every noun is masculine, feminine or neuter, and words that point at it follow. Ghar, house, is neuter, and so is naav, name, which is why the kit says maazhun naav for my name rather than Hindi's mera naam. The speaker's own gender also shows in the past tense: a man who has arrived says mi aalo, a woman mi aale.

Small words become endings. Where English puts to, in or from before a place, Marathi fixes it to the end of the noun, and the noun sometimes changes shape to take it. To Mumbai is Mumbaila; at home is gharat; from home is gharun; and Pune becomes Punyat, in Pune. Station announcements on the Mumbai locals give you pudhil station, next station, followed by the name, and once you know the endings you can follow the rest.

Wanting and knowing happen to you. Many basic sentences start not with I but with to me, mala. I want is mala pahije; I don't know Marathi is mala Marathi yet nahi, Marathi does not come to me. The verb still waits at the end, and nahi comes after it.

The numbers have to be memorised, and the fractions are worth it. Each number from eleven to ninety-nine is its own word, and lakh and crore do the work of the million. Prices also come in halves: deedh is one and a half, adeech two and a half, and saade adds a half to whatever follows, so adeechshe is ₹250. In Mumbai many sellers will simply give the number in Hindi or English if you hesitate.

Hindi's alphabet, Marathi's own voice

Marathi is written in Devanagari, the same script as Hindi, and a visitor who has learnt a few Hindi letters will find Mumbai's shop signs half-readable on the first day. The sounds are another matter. Marathi has a letter Hindi lacks, ळ (LUH), an l said with the tongue curled far back; you hear it in baal, baby, and in Panhala, one of the state's hill forts. Some familiar letters also change their sound: before many vowels the Marathi च (CHUH) is said ts rather than ch, so four, चार (CHAAR), comes out close to tsaar. And many everyday words end in a vowel breathed through the nose, the dot on top in माझं (MAA-zhun), mine, which the kit spells -un.

Start at a street stall, not in a classroom. Mumbai is the easiest place in India to practise, because almost nobody will be thrown by a foreigner trying. Open with namaskar, ask kasa kay?, how's it going?, and order with ek vada pav dya, one vada pav, please. Learn ho for yes, which surprises everyone who expected haan, and nahi for no. If the reply comes back in Hindi, that is not a rebuff; in Mumbai it is simply the next language along.

Six things that catch visitors out

The local train has its own etiquette. Mumbai's suburban trains have first- and second-class coaches and coaches reserved for women, and the platform signs and the painted markings show where each will stop. Fast trains skip stations that slow ones serve, so check the board. Buy a ticket before you board, at the counter or on the railway's UTS app, because inspectors do check. At rush hour, start moving to the door a station before yours and say so: people will make room for you if they know you are getting off, and will not if you push at the last moment.

It is Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, in full. Shivaji, the founder of the Maratha state, is revered across Maharashtra, and his name is given with its titles on the airport, the main station and countless statues. Locals may use the short form among themselves; a visitor making a joke about him, or about the Marathas, will find that the room goes quiet.

Ganeshotsav takes over the streets. For ten days in August or September, the festival of Ganesh fills Maharashtra with neighbourhood pandals, drums and crowds. It was turned into a great public festival in Pune in the 1890s by the nationalist Lokmanya Tilak. Roads close, traffic stops, and on the last day the images are carried to the sea or the river to chants of Ganpati Bappa Morya. If someone hands you prasad, often a sweet modak, accept it and eat it.

Pune keeps its own hours, and says so on its signs. Some shops in Pune's old city still close for a long afternoon break, and the town is famous across Maharashtra for its Puneri patya, notices on gates and counters that are polite only on the surface — no parking, no bargaining, no ringing the bell twice. They are worth reading for pleasure, and worth obeying.

The monsoon rewrites your plans. From June to September heavy rain floods low-lying roads in Mumbai, trains run late, and the coast turns green and wild. Waterfalls appear on every hillside, and so do weekend trekkers on the forts; the paths are slippery, and the sea is no place for swimming. Leave slack in any monsoon itinerary.

Ask for a cutting. Tea from a Mumbai stall comes as a cutting, half a glass, strong, sweet and hot, and ordering a full one marks you out. The city's old Irani cafés, opened by Persian immigrants a century ago, serve it with bun maska, a soft buttered bun, at marble-topped tables where you are expected to sit as long as you like.

Mumbai speaks three languages before breakfast

Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra, and Marathi is the state's official language, but the city has always belonged to everyone who arrived to work in it. Its street speech is Bambaiya, a loose, fast Hindi full of Marathi, Gujarati and English words. Offices run in English. Local trains announce each stop in Marathi, Hindi and English, and that is a fair picture of the city. Marathi is strongest in the older neighbourhoods of Dadar, Girgaon, Parel and Lalbaug, and you will hear it at the vegetable stalls, in temple queues and at the cricket on Shivaji Park.

Inland, the balance changes. Pune is a university and software city where English is everywhere among the young, but its old core is proudly Marathi, and its Marathi is often treated as the standard. In Kolhapur, Nashik, Nagpur or a Konkan fishing village, Marathi is the first language of every exchange, Hindi is widely understood as a fallback, and English is thin outside hotels.

Marathi speakers are attached to their language, which has a written literature going back to the thirteenth century and was recognised by the central government as a classical language in 2024; 27 February is celebrated as Marathi Language Day. In practice that pride is generous rather than prickly. A visitor who says dhanyavaad, or tries a sentence of Marathi, will usually get a delighted reply, very often in Hindi, which is a courtesy to you and not a judgement on your Marathi.

Tai, dada, and a word for it'll do

Tumhi is the safe default, and aapan is a trap. The kit uses tumhi, the everyday polite you, and you can stay with it for everyone. Tu is for close friends and children. The most respectful form, aapan, also means we, in the sense of you and I together, so aapan jaaoo is let's go. It is worth listening for which of the two is meant.

Older women are sisters, and men are brothers. Tai, elder sister, is the warm and respectful way to address a woman a little older than you, and it attaches to names, so a colleague is Sunita-tai. Men are dada, elder brother, or in Mumbai's streets bhau. Older people are kaka and kaku, uncle and aunt, and grandparents are aaji and ajoba. In offices you will hear saheb and madam; in the market, the same people are dada and tai.

Thanks can be English, formal or silent. Dhanyavaad is correct and always welcome, and among Mumbaikars an English thank you is entirely normal. For a real kindness, mi aabhaari aahe, I am grateful, is the formal register. Between friends, though, too many thank-yous can sound distant; a smile and repaying the favour count for more. After a home-cooked meal, chhaan zhala, it turned out lovely, says more than any thank-you.

Learn nako and chalel. Nako, I don't want it, is the most useful word in Marathi: to a seller, to a host offering a third helping, to the taxi driver who suggests a detour. Said twice, nako, nako, with a smile, it is polite and final. Its opposite is chalel, it'll do, the easy Marathi yes to a suggested time, a change of table or a price you can live with. Together with barobar, that's right, they will carry a surprising amount of conversation.

Coast, plateau, and the Sahyadri between

Mumbai is the biggest Marathi city and the least typical one. Its great Victorian Gothic station, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site; its suburban trains carry millions of people a day; and its dabbawalas deliver home-cooked lunches across the city by a relay of bicycles, trains and handcarts. The food of the street is Marathi at heart: vada pav, a spiced potato fritter in a soft bread roll, and misal pav, a fiery sprouted-bean curry topped with crunchy fried snacks.

Behind the coast rise the Sahyadri, the Western Ghats, studded with the hill forts of the seventeenth-century Maratha king Shivaji. Pune, on the plateau beyond, was the seat of the Peshwas, the Maratha prime ministers, whose Shaniwar Wada palace still stands in the old city. Further south, Kolhapur is known for its Mahalakshmi temple, its leather sandals and its mutton curries, red tambda rassa and white pandhra rassa. Nashik, to the north-east, is the centre of India's wine country.

The Konkan coast runs south from Mumbai to Goa, a strip of red earth, coconut palms and fishing villages. Ratnagiri and Devgad are famous for the Alphonso mango, the hapus; Malvan, near the sea fort of Sindhudurg, gives its name to a fiery coconut cuisine and to a local speech that sits between Marathi and Konkani. Dinner there means fish curry, kombdi vade, chicken curry with puffed fried bread, and a glass of pink sol kadhi, made from kokum and coconut milk.

Inland and east, Marathi changes again. Vidarbha, around Nagpur, speaks Varhadi and is famous for oranges and the scorching Saoji cooking; Khandesh in the north has Ahirani; and Marathwada holds the rock-cut caves of Ajanta and Ellora. Every year at the start of the monsoon, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, the warkaris, walk for weeks to the temple of Vitthal at Pandharpur, singing the verses of the Marathi poet-saints Dnyaneshwar and Tukaram as they go.