Hindi → English
English uses 43 sounds. You already own 20 of them from Hindi. The other 23 are the work — and 16 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: alveolar → dental
English: think · written "th"
Tongue between the teeth, no voice.
Your /s/ is the one in saal (year).
the move: close, but not identical
English: bed · written "e", "ea (bread)"
Your /ɛː/ is the one in hai (is).
the move: retroflex → velar
English: sing · written "ng", "n before k"
Your /ɳ/ is the one in gaṇesh (Ganesh).
the move: alveolar → labiodental
English: fish · written "f", "ff", "ph", "gh (laugh)"
Your /s/ is the one in saal (year).
the move: voiced
English: zoo · written "z", "zz", "s (plural after voiced, between vowels)"
Your /s/ is the one in saal (year).
the move: voiced
English: measure · written "s (measure)", "si (vision)", "ge (beige)"
Your /ʃ/ is the one in shaam (evening).
the move: close, but not identical
English: water · written "w", "wh", "u (queen)"
Your /ʋ/ is the one in vah (he, she, that).
the move: front → central
English: bird · written "er", "ir", "ur", "ear (earth)"
American: /ɝ/ with the r.
Your /ɛː/ is the one in hai (is).
the move: open → near-open
English: cat · written "a"
Between /ɛ/ and /a/; mouth wide.
Your /aː/ is the one in aam (mango).
the move: alveolar → dental, voiced
English: this · written "th (function words, between vowels)"
the, this, that, they, mother, breathe.
Your /s/ is the one in saal (year).
the move: approximant → fricative
English: very · written "v", "f (of)"
Your /ʋ/ is the one in vah (he, she, that).
the move: tap → approximant
English: red · written "r", "rr", "wr"
Silent after vowels in British English (car /kɑː/); pronounced in American.
Your /ɾ/ is the one in raat (night).
the move: unrounded
English: cup · written "u", "o (son, love)", "ou (young)"
Your /ɔː/ is the one in aur (and).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
English: home · written "o_e", "oa", "ow", "o (final)"
American: /oʊ/.
Your /ə/ is the one in kal (yesterday/tomorrow).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
English: near · written "ear", "eer", "ere (here)"
American: /ɪr/.
Your /ɪ/ is the one in din (day).
Words you may say identically
Two or more English 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 Hindi 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.
car
Closest thing you own: — but open-mid → open, unrounded.
hot
American: /ɑ/.
Closest thing you own: — but open-mid → open.
make
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still.
time
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still.
boy
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still.
house
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still.
hair
American: /ɛr/.
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Hindi | English | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed, with deletion | Stress-timed |
| Stress | 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. | 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/. |
What you have that English doesn't
21 sounds with no job in English. 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 Hindi has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned English 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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