Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "बताना" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce बताना in Hindi?

बताना is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /bə.t̪aː.naː/. It means “to tell / to inform.” buh-TAA-naa — three beats, with a dental t in the middle and only one long vowel before the ending.

buh-TAA-naa — three beats, with a dental t in the middle and only one long vowel before the ending.

बताना /bə.t̪aː.naː/

bataanaa

Light, heavy, heavy — the schwa syllable is compressed and the two long-aa syllables carry the word. Compare it with bolnaa or karnaa, which have only two beats; here no schwa is deleted, because the vowel is written as a full आ rather than being inherent.

Listen: बताना

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Sound it out

ba Unaspirated ब with a short schwa; light and quick, a launching syllable.

taa Dental त with the tongue tip on the teeth and no puff, opening into a long aa. This is the causative marker that turns "to say" into "to tell."

naa The closing nasal is dental, and its vowel matches the middle syllable in length — three beats, two of them long.

Hear it in a sentence

कृपया मुझे रास्ता बताइए।

Kripayaa mujhe raastaa bataaiye.

Please tell me the way.

Listen: कृपया मुझे रास्ता बताइए।

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"Kripayaa mujhe raastaa bataaiye" uses the polite imperative bataaiye, and raastaa contains a cluster plus a long aa in each syllable. The recipient mujhe needs no extra postposition, since the dative is already built into the pronoun.

Where English speakers slip

The medial t is the likeliest casualty: English speakers make it alveolar, and in American English an intervocalic t becomes a flap, so "buh-TAH-nuh" comes out with a d-like tap. Hindi wants a full dental stop with the tongue against the teeth, cleanly released without a puff.