🗣 Pronunciation key — read me first
Hindi appears three ways on every card: Hinglish (the everyday romanized spelling Hindi speakers use online — ek, nahin, accha), Devanagari (the real script), and a say: line in a precise phonetic respelling. The Hinglish spelling is what you'll see in texts and YouTube comments, but it hides vowel length and retroflex sounds — that's the say-line's job. Five things matter most:
1 · Vowel length changes meaning
a = the "u" in but · aa = father, held longer
i = bit · ee = beet · u = put · oo = boot
Length isn't decoration: kam = less, kaam = work. Hinglish writes both vowels the same way half the time — the say-line never does.
2 · Pure e and o — no glide
ay = the start of "say" but cut off before the y — like Spanish e. So Hinglish ek = say-line ayk. o = "go" without drifting to "w".
ai = "e" in bed, held long (hai ≈ "heh", main ≈ "meh" + nasal). au = "aw" in law.
3 · The h after a consonant = a puff of air (aspiration)
kh gh chh jh th dh ph bh Th Dh are single sounds: the consonant plus a sharp breath, like the "p" in pot (palm up — feel the puff). Plain k g ch j t d p b have no puff, like the "p" in spot.
Critical: Hindi th is NEVER the English "th" in think — it's "t" + breath. And ph is "p"+breath, though saying "f" is fine (phone = "fon").
4 · Two kinds of t and d (lowercase vs CAPITAL in the say-line)
t d = dental: tongue tip on the back of your top teeth, like Spanish/French.
T D R = retroflex: tongue tip curled back — the famous "Indian" t/d. R (in ladka → say-line laR-kaa) is a "d" flapped with the tongue curled back.
English t/d sits between the two — Indians hear English t/d as retroflex. Aim Spanish for the dentals; your English habit roughly covers the retroflexes. Hinglish writes retroflex ones as d/t/r with no warning — another say-line job.
5 · Nasal vowels — the ñ
ñ after a vowel = the vowel goes through your nose, no actual "n". Hoon = say-line hooñ, like French bon. Key words: main, hain, mein, nahin, haan — all nasal.
Smaller points
· v/w is one sound between English v and w — Hinglish spells it either way (wo/vo).
· r (lowercase) = single light tap, like Spanish pero.
· Stress is light and even — don't punch syllables; long vowels carry the weight.
· Hinglish accha = say-line ach-chhaa; doubled letters get held slightly longer.