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Hindi · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "आज" in Hindi?
aaj with a long open vowel and a dry, unaspirated affricate at the end.
aaj
Time adverbs like this usually sit early in the clause, where Hindi intonation is still high, so the word tends to sound prominent — but that is sentence rhythm, not word stress. Its own duration lives entirely in the vowel.
Listen: आज
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
आज बारिश हो रही है।
Aaj baarish ho rahee hai.
It's raining today.
Listen: आज बारिश हो रही है।
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"Aaj baarish ho rahee hai" uses the feminine progressive rahee because baarish is a feminine noun, so the gender shows in the auxiliary rather than in any adjective. Baarish ends in श, essentially English sh.
Where English speakers slip
The final j gets devoiced toward "aach" by English speakers, since English routinely devoices word-final voiced consonants. Keep the vocal folds running through the affricate. The vowel also needs its full length; a clipped version collides with other short words in fast speech.