← 🪔 Hindi Lesson 4 of 6Hindi

Reading Devanagari

🎯 Read and write your own name and simple words — the script takes a week, not a year.

🗣️ Say these out loud

अ आ इ ई उ ऊ 🔊 a aa i ee u oo the first six vowels Each vowel has a full form (अ) used at the start of a word, and a mark (ा ि ी ु ू) used after a consonant.
क + ा = का 🔊 ka + aa = kaa how a vowel mark works क already contains 'a'. Adding ा makes it 'kaa', ि makes it 'ki', ी makes it 'kee'.
क् + अ = क 🔊 — the halant kills the vowel The small stroke ् under a letter removes its built-in 'a'. क् is just 'k'.
नमस्ते 🔊 na-ma-ste read it letter by letter न + म + स् + ते. See the halant under स joining it to त.
भारत — Bhaarat 🔊 BHAA-rut India भ is 'bha', ा makes it 'bhaa', र is 'ra', त is 'ta'.
किताब — kitaab 🔊 ki-TAAB book क with ि = ki; त with ा = taa; ब = b. Note the ि is written before the letter but said after it.

Read every line aloud twice before moving on. The mouth learns a language, not the eye.

🔍 Why Devanagari is easier than the English alphabet

English writes 'through', 'though' and 'tough' with the same letters and three different sounds. Devanagari has one sound per letter, always, and the letters are arranged in a scientific order — by where in the mouth they are made, from the throat outwards.

क ख ग घ ङ — made at the throat
च छ ज झ ञ — made at the palate
ट ठ ड ढ ण — tongue curled to the roof
त थ द ध न — tongue at the teeth
प फ ब भ म — made at the lips
That order was worked out by Indian grammarians well over two thousand years ago, and it is still how phonetics classifies sounds today.

🌍 Among the people

The same script writes Sanskrit, Marathi, Nepali and Konkani. Learn it once and four languages open their doors.

🔁 Practise today

Write your own name in Devanagari.
Copy the five rows of consonants once a day for a week, saying each aloud.
Read the signboards in any Hindi film scene — slowly, letter by letter.

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