LingoDrop
Hindi · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "बिल्कुल" in Hindi?
BIL-kul with two short lax vowels and two clear, bright l's — nothing long in the word.
bilkul
Two short vowels and two closed syllables: compact throughout, heavy only by position. Given its emphatic meaning, English speakers want to stretch it, but Hindi conveys the emphasis through the word choice rather than through duration.
Listen: बिल्कुल
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
मुझे बिल्कुल पता नहीं था।
Mujhe bilkul pataa naheeṁ thaa.
I didn't know at all.
Listen: मुझे बिल्कुल पता नहीं था।
Free browser voice. Hear it read by a real native speaker inside the LingoDrop app.
"Mujhe bilkul pataa naheeṁ thaa" uses bilkul to intensify a negation, and thaa at the end has the aspirated dental थ. Mujhe opens with the breathy झ, so the sentence is bracketed by two different kinds of aspiration.
Where English speakers slip
Both l's darken for English speakers, pulling the vowels backward and making the word sound like "beelkool." Keep the tongue tip forward and the tongue body low for both, and keep both vowels short and lax. The k also needs its puff removed.