Devanagari consonants

Hindi dictionaries list the consonants in a fixed order, worked out by where in the mouth each sound is made. The first 25 letters form a grid of five rows, from the throat to the lips. The remaining letters follow: य र ल व (ya ra la va), then श ष स ह (sha sha sa ha).

Across each row, the pattern is always the same: a plain sound, the same sound with a puff of air, a voiced sound (your throat buzzes), the voiced sound with a puff, and a nasal. So once you know one row, you know how the others work.

Our transliteration writes the curled-tongue row and the teeth row the same way (t, th, d, dh, n), so listen carefully to the audio.

In English, a p or k at the start of a word always comes out with a small puff of air. In Hindi, the puff makes a different letter. क (ka) has no puff at all, ख (kha) has a strong one. Hold your hand in front of your mouth: you should feel the air only on the aspirated letter.

The h in kh, th, ph and so on is only this puff. फल (phal, fruit) starts with a p and a puff, not with an f, and थ (tha) is never the “th” of “thin”.

Hindi has two kinds of t and d. For the retroflex letters, ट ठ ड ढ ण (ta tha da dha na), you curl the tip of your tongue back and touch the roof of your mouth. For the dental letters, त थ द ध न (ta tha da dha na), the tip of the tongue touches the back of your upper front teeth.

The English t and d sit between the two, and Hindi speakers hear them as retroflex. That's why English words are written with ट and ड in Hindi: टिकट (tikat, ticket), डॉक्टर (doktar, doctor).

ङ (nga) and ञ (nya) hardly ever appear on their own. Modern Hindi writes these sounds with the dot above the line: रंग (rang, colour), पंजाब (Panjaab, Punjab).

श (sha) and ष (sha) sound the same in everyday Hindi, like the “sh” in “ship”. व (va) is between an English v and w. र (ra) is a light tap of the tongue, never the English r.

A dot under a letter, the नुक़्ता (nuktaa), marks sounds that came into Hindi from Persian, Arabic and English. Many speakers say क़ like क, ख़ like ख and ग़ like ग, but most people do use ज़ (z) and फ़ (f).

ड़ and ढ़ are different: they are flaps, made by curling the tongue back and flicking it forward. They never start a word. We write ड़ as r and ढ़ as dh.