Correct pronunciation is the most crucial part of learning any language. So, fittingly, the first two challenges I faced while learning Hindi were with pronunciation.
Articulation is the most fundamental thing you have to get right to be understood. For English speakers, Hindi pronunciation takes time to learn because some of these sounds are new to them. Here’s how I did it.
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17 replies on “Hindi Challenges 1: Pronunciation of Dental and Retroflex Letters”
Hey,
I’m glad to find your blog. I’m Australian and learning Hindi. I don’t have a coach, but I do have a bunch of Hindi-speaking friends that I can ask to critique my pronunciation.
I’m working on the sounds first, but I found when listening to Manisha pronounce the dental and retroflex letters, that I can’t even hear the difference. Have you ever seen a minimal pairs list between the Aussie/Kiwi accent and Hindi?
Hey Larissa. Don’t worry too much about it, as long as you know there’s a difference you’ll eventually start hearing it because you know to look out for it. It’s one of those things that just takes a lot of time and you can’t force it or rush it.
i teach esl and using minimal pairs is a very useful way to teach english , however finding lists of minimal pairs in hindi semms impossible
Yes, you’re right. There’s not a lot of information online.
Not to worry, I saw that you have a bunch of examples in the blog.
Sometimes, when my internet queries land on what I was actually wishing for it seems almost miraculous… and this is one of those times.
Thank you so much for this explanation and the wonderful resource.
I Googled “tongue position Hindi vowels” and this is where it brought me. SO grateful.
Thanks SO much!
Thank you Cara! I’m glad you found this page, I spent a lot of time on it.
“Out of all the words with the T and D sounds, त and द are by far the most common. If I don’t know the spelling, I just default to those first two and hope for the best”
would it be possible to get a bibliographical reference for that ?
https://books.google.ch/books?id=RFAIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA25&redir_esc=y&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false
(h/t legatrix (https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/37744/what-is-the-frequency-of-devanagari-signs-in-sanskrit) )
The frequency of त is 6.63% and द 2.85% vs. the rest are
थ .58% ध .83%
ट .26% ड .21% ठ .96% ढ .03%.
Your website and youtube videos are a great resources. Ive found nothing like them for learning the hindi language and about daily life in india. Thanks so much
Thanks for your kind comment James
About two weeks ago I decided to embark on this journey towards learning Hindi and just today landed on your website. Your posts are so inspiring!
Thanks George! I’m happy to hear that.
Hi Karl,
Appreciate your work to create this site very much! My wife is from Fiji and speaks Fiji-Hindi, so I’ve been quite keen to learn as much as I can.
Thanks Matt!
still, it would be useful be able to have minimal pairs to use with a hindi speaker .. you learn to hear the difference before attempting to articulate the different sounds . I find using minimal pairs very useful in teaching esl.
This is so useful. Thank you 😊