Hindi Lesson #1

by Ashwin Batish

Hindi is really a terrific language to learn. Most of you that make it to this page are here for a reason. I will guess that you want to either visit India or perhaps have some Indian friends that you want to impress :) Well what ever the reason I want to try make this learning experience a positive one for you.

Hindi is one of the very few written languages that can accurately do phonetic translations of any of the World languages. There are exceptions but I'm talking about the majority of cases.

What makes Hindi so complete is the set of alphabets. Whereas in English we have a, e, i, o, u. In Hindi the vowels are a, aa, i, ee, u, oo, e, ai, o, ou, ñ. Let's look at these.

Free Standing Vowels and Consonants

Picture of a
prounced "u" as in the word "Cut"

Picture of aa
pronounced "a" as in the word "Path"

Picture of i
pronounced "i" as in the word "Pit"

Picture of ee
pronounced "ea" as in the word "Peat"

Picture of u
pronounced "u" as in the word "Put"

Picture of oo
pronounced "oo" as in the word "Boot"

Picture of rhi
pronounced "ri" as in the word "Grief"

Picture of e
pronounced "a" as in the word "Pay"

Picture of ai
pronounced "a" as in the word "Pie"

Picture of o
pronounced "o" as in the word "so"

Picture of ow
pronounced "ow" as in the word "owl"

Picture of un
pronounced "un" as in the word "skunk"

Picture of ah
pronounced "ah" as in the word "Namaha"

Now let me cover the complete Hindi alphabet set. If you want to get good at hindi I would recommend you memorize this completely. Latter I will give you examples that will help you get familiarized with this set.

Picture of ka
pronounced "cu" as in cut

Picture of kha
pronounced "kha" as in khalifa (aspirated ka)

Picture of ga
pronounced "gu" as in gutter

Picture of gha
pronounced "gha" as in ghar (aspirated ga)

Picture of ada
pronounced "ada" say this quickly

Picture of cha
pronounced as "chu" in churning

Picture of chha
pronounced as "chha" asparated cha

Picture of ja
pronounced as "ju" in just

Picture of jha
aspirated ja

Picture of nya
pronounced as "dun" in dunk

Picture of Ta
pronounced as "tu" in tummy

Picture of Tha
pronounced as "tha" thandaa (aspirated Ta)

Picture of Da
pronounced as "du" in dummy

Picture of Dha
aspirated Da

Picture of Na
no example available yet

Picture of ta
pronounced "ta" as in tantra

Picture of tha
pronounced "thu" as in thud

Picture of da
pronounced "da" as in darbaar (soft dental)

Picture of dha
pronounced "dha" as in dharma

Picture of na
pronounced "nu" as in nun

Picture of pa
pronounced "p" as in perm

Picture of pha
asperated pa

Picture of ba
pronounced as "bu" in butter

Picture of bha
pronounced as "bhu" in bhusker (aspirated ba)

Picture of ma
pronounced as "mo" in mother

Picture of ya
pronounced as "yu" in yummy

Picture of ra
pronounced as "ru" in rust

Picture of la
pronounced as "lu" in lucky

Picture of va
pronounced as "va" in variety

Picture of sha
pronounced as "shu" in shut

Picture of sha2
same as above

Picture of sa
pronounced as "su" in subtle

Picture of ha
pronounced as "hu" in hurt

Picture of axa
pronounced "aksha" as in stuck sherman

Picture of tra
pronounced "tra" as both running

Picture of gya
pronounced as bug yarn

Other Issues:

1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9


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