Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "बहुत" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce बहुत in Hindi?

बहुत is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /bə.ɦʊt̪/. It means “very / a lot.” buh-HOOT in careful speech, but in normal conversation it contracts to something close to "baut" — a single syllable.

buh-HOOT in careful speech, but in normal conversation it contracts to something close to "baut" — a single syllable.

बहुत /bə.ɦʊt̪/

bahut

In its careful form the word has two light syllables and no long vowel at all, which is why it compresses so readily. Recognising the contracted version is more useful than mastering the deliberate one, since fluent speakers almost never say it in full.

Listen: बहुत

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Sound it out

ba Unaspirated ब with a bare schwa, both of which shrink dramatically at speed.

hu Voiced ह and a short lax उ. This is the syllable that survives contraction, and the h often disappears into the vowel.

t Dental त closing the word, tongue on the upper teeth, released quietly.

Hear it in a sentence

आपका बहुत धन्यवाद।

Aapkaa bahut dhanyavaad.

Thank you very much.

Listen: आपका बहुत धन्यवाद।

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"Aapkaa bahut dhanyavaad" puts bahut before dhanyavaad as an intensifier, and dhanyavaad opens with the breathy-voiced ध. So the phrase moves from a plain b, through a weak h, to a fully breathy dental stop — three degrees of the same feature.

Where English speakers slip

Beginners over-articulate it as three careful beats, "ba-hoo-ta," which sounds stilted and also restores a final vowel that schwa deletion removes. Let it collapse. The final त is the other point: it is dental and quiet, not the alveolar released t of English "boot."