Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "भाई" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce भाई in Hindi?

भाई is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /bʱaː.iː/. It means “brother.” BHAA-ee — a breathy-voiced b, then two long vowels side by side with nothing between them.

BHAA-ee — a breathy-voiced b, then two long vowels side by side with nothing between them.

भाई /bʱaː.iː/

bhaaee

Built almost entirely from vowels, with only the breathy onset as a consonant, this is an unusually open and slow word. Collapsing the hiatus into a single glide removes a whole beat.

Listen: भाई

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Sound it out

bh The lips close with the voice already buzzing, and a warm sigh follows the release — voicing and aspiration in the same segment.

aa A long open आ carrying that breathiness into its opening moments.

ee A long ई directly after the aa with no consonant between them — a genuine two-syllable hiatus, not a diphthong.

Hear it in a sentence

मेरा भाई दिल्ली में रहता है।

Meraa bhaaee Dillee meṁ rehtaa hai.

My brother lives in Delhi.

Listen: मेरा भाई दिल्ली में रहता है।

Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.

"Meraa bhaaee Dillee meṁ rehtaa hai" puts the breathy भ right after meraa's long aa, so the sigh is very exposed. Dillee has a doubled l, and meṁ contributes the sentence's only nasalized vowel.

Where English speakers slip

Two things go: the breathiness on b, giving "baa-ee," and the vowel hiatus, giving something like "bye." Restore them separately. Sigh audibly while voicing the b, then say the two vowels as two distinct beats with a slight break between them.