Marathi Pronouns: तू, तुम्ही, आपण, Which to Use When

Greet your Marathi colleague's father with तू (tu) and you'll watch a smile vanish. Call a child तुम्ही (tumhi) and they'll look confused. Marathi has three separate words for "you," and which one you pick communicates far more than just the address, it broadcasts your relationship, your respect level, and whether you've been paying attention to Maharashtrian social norms. Getting it right matters from your first real conversation.

तू (tu), Intimacy, Not Disrespect

तू is the intimate second-person singular. It's what you say to your best friend, your younger sibling, a small child, or the deity you feel emotionally close to. Marathi poets addressed Vitthal of Pandharpur in तू, because that form of devotion implies a personal bond rather than formal reverence.

The IPA for तू is /tuː/, a long /uː/ vowel, not the short English "too." In Marathi, the length of that vowel matters: तु without the length marker would be part of a different word in context.

The critical rule: तू is appropriate only when both parties agree the relationship allows it. Between close college friends? Fine. With a rick-shaw driver younger than you? Probably fine in Mumbai casual speech. With your partner's parents, a professor, a government official, or anyone you've just met who's older than you? It's a social misstep you can't un-make. The offensiveness isn't theoretical, Maharashtrian families genuinely talk about people who showed up using तू with elders.

How verbs behave with तू

The verb ending in present tense shifts. For the verb असणे (asaṇe, to be):

तू form	Marathi	Romanization	IPA	English
Present	तू आहेस	tū āhes	/tuː aːɦes/	You are
Past (m)	तू होतास	tū hotās	/tuː ɦoːtaːs/	You were (masc)
Past (f)	तू होतीस	tū hotīs	/tuː ɦoːtiːs/	You were (fem)

The -स (-s) suffix is the marker. See it in आहेस, होतास, होतीस, it always signals the तू form. Once you recognize that -स, you can place where any conjugated verb sits in the formality system.

तुम्ही (tumhi), Polite, Plural, and Safe

तुम्ही does two jobs simultaneously. It's the polite singular "you" (used for elders, strangers, new acquaintances, anyone in a formal context) and it's the ordinary plural "you" when addressing more than one person. IPA: /tumɦiː/.

This is the form you should default to whenever there's any doubt. Speaking with your colleague's mother for the first time? तुम्ही. Talking to the pharmacist? तुम्ही. Writing a professional email? तुम्ही.

The verb agreement for तुम्ही uses -त (-t) in the present habitual and -आत (-āt) in the "to be" present:

तुम्ही form	Marathi	Romanization	English
Present be	तुम्ही आहात	tumhī āhāt	You are (polite/plural)
Habitual	तुम्ही खाता	tumhī khātā	You eat (habitual)
Past (m)	तुम्ही होतात	tumhī hotāt	You were (masc/plural)
Past (f)	तुम्ही होत्या	tumhī hotyā	You were (fem/plural)

The past-tense split between होतात and होत्या catches people. It's not the gender of the person you're addressing in isolation, it's the gender agreement pattern for the number of subjects. When तुम्ही is plural, the masculine form takes -ात and the feminine takes -्या. The three-gender system that governs all Marathi verb agreement is what drives this.

तुम्ही कसे आहात? (tumhī kase āhāt?), "How are you?" addressed politely
तुम्ही सगळे कसे आहात? (tumhī sagaḷe kase āhāt?), "How are all of you?" (clearly plural)

The sentence structure reveals whether तुम्ही is singular-polite or truly plural. Context handles the disambiguation, Marathi speakers never find this ambiguous because the rest of the sentence usually makes it obvious.

आपण (āpaṇ), The Most Respectful "You" and the Inclusive "We"

आपण is the word that surprises everyone learning Marathi. It's simultaneously:

The most formal and respectful "you", used for highly respected elders, dignitaries, or in very formal writing
The inclusive "we", meaning "we, including you"

IPA: /aːpəɳ/. The final ण is retroflex (/ɳ/), distinct from the dental न (/n/). Don't flatten it to an English "n."

As a formal "you": You'd use आपण when addressing someone like a senior government official or a religious elder. It's rarer in everyday speech than the English equivalent "you" would suggest, most polite situations call for तुम्ही, not आपण. आपण as a "you" form is more common in formal written registers, ceremonial contexts, or Marathi literature.

As the inclusive "we": This is where आपण shows up constantly. Marathi distinguishes between two "we" forms:

Word	Marathi	Romanization	Meaning
आम्ही	āmhī	/aːmɦiː/	We (exclusive), "we, not including you"
आपण	āpaṇ	/aːpəɳ/	We (inclusive), "we, including you"

This distinction is grammatically encoded in the language. आम्ही आलो (āmhī ālo, we came), the people speaking, not the listener. आपण जाऊया (āpaṇ jāūyā, let's go), you and I together. A Marathi speaker would never confuse the two; to an English ear, both translate as "we."

The inclusive/exclusive split actually makes communication more precise than English. "We're going to the temple tomorrow", does that include the listener or not? In Marathi, you have to commit.

The Full Marathi Pronoun Set

First and second person covered, the complete picture:

Pronoun	Devanagari	Romanization	IPA	Notes
I	मी	mī	/miː/
You (informal)	तू	tū	/tuː/	Intimate only
You (polite/plural)	तुम्ही	tumhī	/tumɦiː/	Default for most situations
You (formal/inclusive we)	आपण	āpaṇ	/aːpəɳ/	Formal register; also inclusive we
He	तो	to	/toː/	Masculine
She	ती	tī	/tiː/	Feminine
It / they (neuter)	ते	te	/teː/	Also third-person neuter plural
We (exclusive)	आम्ही	āmhī	/aːmɦiː/	Excludes listener
We (inclusive)	आपण	āpaṇ	/aːpəɳ/	Includes listener
They	ते / त्या	te / tyā	/teː/ / /tjaː/	Masc/neut: ते; Fem: त्या

The third-person pronouns तो, ती, ते align with Marathi's three-gender system. तो refers to masculine nouns and people, ती to feminine, and ते to neuter nouns or mixed-gender groups. The past tense verb पुस्तक पडले (pustak paḍale, the book fell) uses ते-agreement because पुस्तक is neuter, you don't need the explicit pronoun ते to mark it, the verb ending does the work.

Verb Agreement: Why This Gets Complex Fast

The pronoun choice doesn't just affect which word you say, it restructures the entire verb. The present habitual tense (the "I go / she goes" pattern) shows the full spread:

Pronoun	Marathi	Romanization	Verb ending
मी	मी जातो (m) / जाते (f)	mī jāto / jāte	-तो / -ते
तू	तू जातोस (m) / जातेस (f)	tū jātos / jātes	-तोस / -तेस
तो	तो जातो	to jāto	-तो
ती	ती जाते	tī jāte	-ते
ते (neut)	ते जाते	te jāte	-ते
आम्ही	आम्ही जातो	āmhī jāto	-तो
तुम्ही	तुम्ही जाता	tumhī jātā	-ता
ते (plural)	ते जातात	te jātāt	-तात

The जाणे (jāṇe, to go) paradigm shows every major ending. The -ता ending for तुम्ही and the -तात for third-person plural are the ones learners most often scramble. A useful anchor: तुम्ही always gets -ता in present habitual, tumhī khātā (you eat), tumhī jātā (you go), tumhī khatā (you write).

For transitive verbs in the past tense, the ergative construction kicks in and the subject takes the postposition -ने (ne), at which point the verb agrees with the object, not the subject. That's a significant enough topic to handle on its own, and it's covered thoroughly in the Marathi vs Hindi differences post, which also compares how Hindi's simpler structure traps learners into assuming Marathi's past tense works the same way.

The Social Stakes of Getting It Wrong

Using तू with someone who expects तुम्ही is the most common error non-native Marathi speakers make, and the consequences are real rather than theoretical. In professional settings (a job interview in Pune, a first meeting with a new client's parents, a formal dinner) the wrong pronoun form reads as either arrogance or ignorance. Neither helps.

The reverse error is gentler. Using तुम्ही with a close friend who'd prefer तू comes across as over-formal or stiff, the way a college student calling a friend "sir" would land in English. Slightly awkward, but not rude.

The safest rule for learners: default to तुम्ही until the other person explicitly signals informality. In practice, a Marathi speaker who wants तू with you will say something like "अरे, आपण एकमेकांशी तू म्हणू" (are, āpaṇ ekamekānsī tū mhaṇū, "hey, let's use तू with each other"). Once that signal comes, shift.

For practical greetings and openers you can slot the correct pronoun into immediately, the 20 essential Marathi phrases for daily life post has the full greeting set alongside the contexts where each formality level fits.

The Learn Marathi app by Brightwood Apps covers all three pronoun forms in the early grammar units, with native-speaker audio for each conjugation across tenses, so you hear the -ता and -तात endings produced at natural speed before you try them yourself.