English → Hindi
Hindi uses 41 sounds. You already own 20 of them from English. The other 21 are the work — and 20 of those are the dangerous kind: close enough to something you already say that you will substitute them without hearing yourself do it.
The silent swaps
Your mouth has something close enough to reach for. These survive for years precisely because they sound right to you — the fix is hearing the difference first, not trying harder.
the move: aspirated
Hindi: food · written "kh", "ख"
A puff of air. kaam 'work' vs khaam 'raw'.
Your /k/ is the one in cat (cat).
the move: close, but not identical
Hindi: house · written "gh", "घ"
Breathy, not aspirated — voicing carries on through the breath.
Your /ɡ/ is the one in go (go).
the move: aspirated
Hindi: a little · written "th", "थ"
Never the English th sound. Dental t plus a puff.
Your /t/ is the one in tea (tea).
the move: aspirated
Hindi: fruit · written "ph", "फ"
Often said as /f/ nowadays, especially in loanwords.
Your /p/ is the one in pen (pen).
the move: close, but not identical
Hindi: brother · written "bh", "भ"
Your /b/ is the one in bed (bed).
the move: aspirated
Hindi: small · written "chh", "छ"
Your /t͡ʃ/ is the one in church (church).
the move: close, but not identical
Hindi: a lie · written "jh", "झ"
Your /d͡ʒ/ is the one in judge (judge).
the move: longer
Hindi: is · written "ai", "ऐ"
Not a diphthong in standard Hindi — one open vowel.
Your /ɛ/ is the one in bed (bed).
the move: velar → retroflex
Hindi: tomato · written "ṭ", "ट"
RETROFLEX: tongue curled back. This is the one English speakers substitute for both — English t sits between the two and sounds foreign either way.
Your /k/ is the one in cat (cat).
the move: velar → retroflex
Hindi: fear · written "ḍ", "ड"
Your /ɡ/ is the one in go (go).
the move: velar → retroflex
Hindi: Ganesh · written "ṇ", "ण"
Retroflex n.
Your /ŋ/ is the one in sing (sing).
the move: close, but not identical
Hindi: he, she, that · written "v", "w", "व"
Between English v and w and genuinely neither — which is why Hindi speakers of English swap the two.
Your /w/ is the one in water (water).
the move: alveolar → dental
Hindi: sunshine · written "dh", "ध"
Your /d/ is the one in dog (dog).
the move: open-mid → close-mid
Hindi: two · written "o", "ओ"
Your /ɔː/ is the one in law (law).
the move: near-open → open, longer
Hindi: mango · written "aa", "आ", "ा"
Your /æ/ is the one in cat (cat).
the move: approximant → tap
Hindi: night · written "r", "र"
A tap, as in Spanish pero.
Your /ɹ/ is the one in red (red).
the move: close → close-mid
Hindi: one · written "e", "ए"
Your /iː/ is the one in see (see).
the move: velar → retroflex, aspirated
Hindi: cold · written "ṭh", "ठ"
Your /k/ is the one in cat (cat).
the move: velar → retroflex
Hindi: drum · written "ḍh", "ढ"
Your /ɡ/ is the one in go (go).
Words you may say identically
Two or more Hindi sounds landing on one sound of yours. Until the ear separates them, the mouth cannot — which is what the ear trainer is for.
Genuinely new
Nothing in English sits close to these. They sound foreign in your mouth — which is the good news: you can hear that you are not saying them yet.
tree
The tongue flicks forward off the roof of the mouth. A single quick beat.
Closest thing you own: — but approximant → flap, palatal → retroflex.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| English | Hindi | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Stress-timed | Syllable-timed, with deletion |
| Stress | Contrastive, and unmarked in writing — the single most common cause of not being understood. Dozens of noun/verb pairs differ only in where the stress goes, and every unstressed vowel collapses to /ə/. | Not contrastive and not written. Stress falls on the heaviest syllable — a long vowel or a closed syllable outweighs a short open one — and where several are equal it goes to the last of them. No two Hindi words are told apart by stress alone, which makes it the least stressful stress system here. |
What you have that Hindi doesn't
23 sounds with no job in Hindi. They are not mistakes — but they are where an accent leaks in, because a sound you own is easy to use when a hard one is due.
The honest caveat
This is a prediction from the shape of two sound systems, not a recording of you. It says what your inventory makes likely — it cannot know that your English has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned Hindi from someone whose accent you copied. A teacher listening to you beats it. Use it to know what to listen for.
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