The 'To Be' Verb in Marathi: आहे, आहेस, आहोत

Why is आहे the most important word you'll learn in Marathi?

Because it shows up in almost everything. Tell someone who you are: आहे. Describe where you are: आहे. Comment on the state of something: आहे. Ask a question: आहे. Before you touch a single verb paradigm, before you wrestle with Marathi's three genders or its famous ergative past tense, आहे (āhe) will already be doing serious work in your sentences.

And yet, despite that ubiquity, आहे is also one of the first words you'll learn to drop — because in fast colloquial speech, native speakers omit it constantly. Understanding when it appears and when it disappears tells you a great deal about how Marathi actually sounds in real conversation versus how it appears in textbooks.

This post covers the full conjugation of असणे (asaṇe, to be): the present tense with all its forms, how आहे functions for identity, location, and state, negation, the gender-sensitive past tense, and the future forms. The verb isn't complex. But it's everywhere.

The Present Tense: Full Conjugation of असणे

असणे is the infinitive — "to be." In practice, you'll rarely say असणे itself. What you'll say are its conjugated forms, and the one you'll use most is आहे.

Here's the complete present-tense picture:

Pronoun	Marathi	Romanization	English
मी (I)	मी आहे	mī āhe	I am
तू (you, informal)	तू आहेस	tū āhes	You are (intimate)
तो (he)	तो आहे	to āhe	He is
ती (she)	ती आहे	tī āhe	She is
ते (it / neuter)	ते आहे	te āhe	It is
आम्ही (we, exclusive)	आम्ही आहोत	āmhī āhot	We are
तुम्ही (you, polite/plural)	तुम्ही आहात	tumhī āhāt	You are (polite)
ते (they)	ते आहेत	te āhet	They are

A few things worth anchoring:

मी आहे, तो आहे, ती आहे, ते आहे — all four use the same form. The third-person singular and first-person singular share आहे regardless of gender. Marathi doesn't split आहे for gender in the present tense the way it does in the past.

तू आहेस — the -स (-s) suffix is the signature of the intimate second person. You saw it in verb tenses and in the pronoun guide. It appears on आहे as आहेस.

आम्ही आहोत — the -त (-t) ending marks the first-person plural. Not आहे, not आहेत — specifically आहोत. This is the form that trips up learners who assume the plural is always -त.

तुम्ही आहात — polite second person ends in -त (-t), but the vowel changes: आहात, not आहोत. The distinction between आहोत (we are) and आहात (you are) comes down to that vowel: ओ vs. आ.

ते आहेत — third-person plural adds -त to आहे to get आहेत. The anusvara (the dot over the ह) signals the nasal quality in speech.

Three Jobs आहे Does

आहे doesn't mean just one thing the way "is" in English sometimes seems to. It handles three distinct categories of meaning, and Marathi uses the same word for all three.

Identity

Telling someone who or what something is:

• मी शिक्षक आहे. (Mī śikṣak āhe.) — "I am a teacher."
• तो माझा भाऊ आहे. (To mājhā bhāū āhe.) — "He is my brother."
• ही कादंबरी खूप चांगली आहे. (Hī kādambarī khūp cāṅglī āhe.) — "This novel is very good."

Location

Stating where something or someone is:

• मी घरी आहे. (Mī gharī āhe.) — "I am at home."
• पुस्तक टेबलावर आहे. (Pustak ṭeblāvar āhe.) — "The book is on the table."
• ते मुंबईत आहेत. (Te Mumbaīt āhet.) — "They are in Mumbai."

State or Condition

Describing a temporary or permanent state:

• मला थंडी आहे. (Malā thaṇḍī āhe.) — "I am cold." (literally: to me there is coldness)
• तू थकलेला आहेस का? (Tū thaklelā āhes kā?) — "Are you tired?"
• पाऊस आहे. (Pāūs āhe.) — "There is rain." / "It's raining."

Notice the third category uses a slightly different grammatical pattern — the experiencer takes -ला (-lā) and the sensation or state is the subject. मला थंडी आहे is literally "to-me coldness is," not "I am cold" in the word-for-word sense. This pattern shows up constantly in Marathi for hunger, thirst, pain, and emotion.

The Colloquial Drop: When आहे Disappears

In casual Mumbai and Pune speech, आहे often drops entirely from the sentence. This isn't incorrect or lazy — it's how fluent speakers talk, and if you only know the textbook form, you'll sound formal in contexts that call for casual register.

What gets dropped most readily:

First-person identity: In quick conversation, मी शिक्षक (without आहे) is understood perfectly from context. Someone who's introduced you will often follow up with just मी + noun.

Third-person location: In response to "where is your bag?" a Marathi speaker might say just टेबलावर — "on the table" — and आहे is implied.

State sentences: अरे, खूप थंडी! (Are, khūp thaṇḍī!) — "Man, so cold!" — is a complete natural utterance without आहे.

The rule of thumb: आहे drops most freely in short, context-rich exchanges. In longer sentences, in formal speech, in writing, or when clarity is needed, it stays. When you're learning, keep आहे in until you've heard enough natural speech to feel where the drops are.

The drop is more common in Mumbai's faster, more mixed-register speech than in Pune, where a slightly more complete sentence structure tends to be maintained in formal and semi-formal contexts.

Negation: नाही Replaces आहे

This is clean and consistent: when you negate a "to be" statement, नाही (nāhī) replaces आहे entirely. The verb doesn't take a participial form first. It just disappears.

Affirmative	Negative
मी विद्यार्थी आहे. (I am a student.)	मी विद्यार्थी नाही. (I am not a student.)
तो घरी आहे. (He is at home.)	तो घरी नाही. (He is not at home.)
ती माझी मैत्रीण आहे. (She is my friend.)	ती माझी मैत्रीण नाही. (She is not my friend.)
आम्ही तयार आहोत. (We are ready.)	आम्ही तयार नाही. (We are not ready.)
ते इथे आहेत. (They are here.)	ते इथे नाहीत. (They are not here.)
तू बरा आहेस. (You are fine.)	तू बरा नाहीस. (You are not fine.)

Two things to notice in that table:

First, नाही also inflects. For तू, it becomes नाहीस (nāhīs). For ते (plural), it becomes नाहीत (nāhīt). नाही isn't a frozen particle — it mirrors the agreement pattern of आहे. The Marathi negation guide goes through the full inflection table with examples across all tenses.

Second, आहोत (we are) negates to just नाही — not नाहीत. The first-person plural doesn't take the -त plural marker in negation. This is a detail to memorize: आम्ही आहोत → आम्ही नाही, not *आम्ही नाहीत.

The Past Tense: होतो, होती, होते

Here's where Marathi's three-gender system starts to matter directly. The past tense of असणे agrees with the subject's gender — masculine, feminine, or neuter. This is one of the starkest examples of how gender shapes the verb in Marathi.

The past tense forms of "to be":

Subject	Gender	Marathi	Romanization	English
मी (I, male)	Masculine	मी होतो	mī hoto	I was
मी (I, female)	Feminine	मी होते	mī hote	I was
तू (you, male)	Masculine	तू होतास	tū hotās	You were
तू (you, female)	Feminine	तू होतीस	tū hotīs	You were
तो (he)	Masculine	तो होता	to hotā	He was
ती (she)	Feminine	ती होती	tī hotī	She was
ते (it)	Neuter	ते होते	te hote	It was
आम्ही (we, male/mixed)	Masculine	आम्ही होतो	āmhī hoto	We were
आम्ही (we, female group)	Feminine	आम्ही होत्या	āmhī hotyā	We were
तुम्ही (you, masc/mixed)	Masculine	तुम्ही होतात	tumhī hotāt	You were
तुम्ही (you, fem group)	Feminine	तुम्ही होत्या	tumhī hotyā	You were
ते (they, masc/mixed)	Masculine	ते होते	te hote	They were
त्या (they, fem)	Feminine	त्या होत्या	tyā hotyā	They were

This might look daunting as a table. In practice, the pattern is consistent: masculine forms use -ता/-तो/-तास/-तात, feminine forms use -ती/-त्या/-तीस. The root हो- (ho-) stays constant. What changes is the ending.

The neuter singular (ते होते) shares its form with the masculine plural (ते होते). Context — and whether you're talking about a single object or a group of people — tells speakers apart. Marathi speakers navigate this without confusion; learners just need to flag it as an ambiguity to watch for early on.

If you want the full picture of how three genders drive agreement across all verb forms, the three genders in Marathi post maps out the whole system.

Past Tense Examples in Context

• तो पुण्यात होता. (To Puṇyāt hotā.) — "He was in Pune."
• ती विद्यार्थिनी होती. (Tī vidyārthinī hotī.) — "She was a student."
• आम्ही तयार होतो. (Āmhī tayār hoto.) — "We were ready." (male group or mixed)
• त्या थकलेल्या होत्या. (Tyā thaklelayā hotyā.) — "They were tired." (female group)
• पुस्तक इथे होते. (Pustak ithe hote.) — "The book was here." (neuter noun)

That last example shows something important. पुस्तक (pustak, book) is neuter in Marathi — so the verb agrees with the noun's gender, not with any person. पुस्तक होते, not होता or होती. Noun gender drives this, and if you've been learning nouns without their gender, this is where it starts to cost you. Every noun in Marathi has a gender — masculine, feminine, or neuter — and that gender cascades through the whole sentence.

Negating the Past Tense

Past-tense negation follows the same replacement logic as present tense: नाही (nāhī) follows the completed verb form. Unlike the present, where आहे drops out and नाही takes its place, in the past you keep the past form and add नाही after it.

• तो घरी होता नाही. (To gharī hotā nāhī.) — "He wasn't at home."
• मी तिथे नव्हतो. (Mī tithe navhato.) — "I wasn't there." (masculine)

That second form — नव्हतो (navhato) — is the contracted, more colloquial form. It merges the negative particle and होतो into a single word. You'll hear both constructions: होता नाही (formal, compositional) and नव्हता (colloquial, fused). नव्हतो (masculine I), नव्हते (feminine I), नव्हती (feminine she), नव्हते (neuter it) — the gender endings are the same as in the affirmative forms.

The fused forms are worth memorizing because they appear constantly in natural speech:

Subject	Negative past (fused)	Romanization	English
मी (male)	मी नव्हतो	mī navhato	I wasn't
मी (female)	मी नव्हते	mī navhate	I wasn't
तो	तो नव्हता	to navhatā	He wasn't
ती	ती नव्हती	tī navhatī	She wasn't
ते (neuter)	ते नव्हते	te navhate	It wasn't
आम्ही (m)	आम्ही नव्हतो	āmhī navhato	We weren't
ते (plural m)	ते नव्हते	te navhate	They weren't

The Future Tense: असेन, असशील, असेल

The future tense of असणे uses a distinct stem — the असणे root more visibly now — with personal endings. These are the forms for "will be":

Pronoun	Marathi	Romanization	English
मी (I)	मी असेन	mī asen	I will be
तू (you, informal)	तू असशील	tū assīl	You will be
तो/ती/ते	तो/ती/ते असेल	to/tī/te asel	He/she/it will be
आम्ही (we)	आम्ही असू	āmhī asū	We will be
तुम्ही (you, polite)	तुम्ही असाल	tumhī asāl	You will be
ते (they)	ते असतील	te astīl	They will be

These forms don't change for gender the way the past-tense forms do. Future tense in Marathi doesn't carry gender agreement on the verb — only the past tense does. This makes the future conjugation simpler to produce, though you'll still need to handle gender when adjectives or past participles appear elsewhere in the sentence.

Examples:

• मी उद्या घरी असेन. (Mī udyā gharī asen.) — "I will be home tomorrow."
• तू बरोबर असशील. (Tū barobar assīl.) — "You will be right."
• तो तिथे असेल का? (To tithe asel kā?) — "Will he be there?"
• ते वेळेत असतील. (Te veḷet astīl.) — "They will be on time."

The future forms of असणे also appear inside longer constructions — especially in conditionals and polite requests. तुम्ही असाल (tumhī asāl) shows up in sentences like "if you are available..." or "when you are in Pune...," making these forms useful well beyond simple statements.

Putting the System Together

The three tenses form a clean system:

Tense	मी form	तो form	ती form	आम्ही form
Present	आहे	आहे	आहे	आहोत
Past	होतो (m) / होते (f)	होता	होती	होतो (m) / होत्या (f)
Future	असेन	असेल	असेल	असू

The present tense doesn't split for gender. The past tense does. The future doesn't. This means the past tense is the one that requires the most attention — you need to know the gender of your subject before you can produce the right form.

A practical sentence showing all three tenses:

• मी आधी विद्यार्थी होतो, आता शिक्षक आहे, आणि उद्या मुख्याध्यापक असेन.
• (Mī ādhī vidyārthī hoto, ātā śikṣak āhe, āṇi udyā mukhyādhyāpak asen.)
• "I was a student before, am a teacher now, and will be a principal tomorrow."

All three forms in one sentence — होतो (past, masculine I), आहे (present), असेन (future) — showing the complete arc.

Why This Verb Is Worth Getting Right

असणे isn't just one verb among many. It's the auxiliary that supports other tenses in Marathi. The present continuous (I am eating), the perfect (I have eaten), and the past continuous (I was eating) all incorporate forms of असणे or होतो as their auxiliary component. When you know how आहे, होता/होती, and असेल work, you're not just learning "to be" — you're building the scaffold that the entire Marathi tense system hangs from.

The Marathi verb tenses introduction covers how these auxiliary forms attach to main verbs across all three major tenses, including the ergative past where the subject takes -ने and the verb shifts to agree with the object instead of the speaker. That construction doesn't affect असणे directly — असणे is intransitive and doesn't take an ergative subject — but seeing how होता/होती/होते behave as auxiliaries in that context is essential for the next step in Marathi.

The Learn Marathi app by Brightwood Apps takes you through असणे in its early grammar units, with native-speaker audio for every conjugated form across all three tenses. Hearing the difference between आहोत and आहात, or between होतो and होत्या, in natural speech is what makes these distinctions click. Available on the App Store.