LITMIR.BIZ

      Pronunciation Guide

      Nothing beats listening to a native speaker, but the following notes should help you to attain the right pronunciation. The Hindi transcription used in this book is the internationally most common one. English speakers must pay attention to some main differences in order to make themselves understood. Here are the basic rules:

      VOWELS

      Most vowels in Hindi have a clear equivalent in English, so that pronouncing should not pose any major problem.

      The vowels are:

      The Hindi vowels differ in length—as in shabd (word) and āj (today). But there is a degree of variation in the pronunciation of certain vowels, often due to regional differences.

      Consonants

      Unlike the Hindi vowel system, the consonants are more complex and to master them some more information is necessary:

      Retroflex consonants

      There is a crucial difference between dental and retroflex consonants in Hindi. In dental consonants, the tongue touches the upper front teeth, whereas retroflex consonants are pronounced with the tongue turned back to the roof of your mouth. For example, set your mouth up to pronounce a “regular” d, but then curl your tongue right up so that the bottom part of it touches the top part of your mouth. As you try to pronounce the original d, you will feel your tongue “flapping” forward. American English has also some of these retroflex sounds, most commonly in the middle of words like “bidder”, “heart”, and “bitter”, or at the end of words like “bad”, “butter”, and “bat”. The three retroflex consonants are: ḍ, ṭ, and ṇ. Strictly speaking ṣ is also a retroflex, but in practice it is rarely distinguished from an English “sh”.

      Aspirated consonants

      Hindi also distinguishes breathed

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