Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "दूर" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce दूर in Hindi?

दूर is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /d̪uːɾ/. It means “far / far away.” Not English "door" — a dental d, the long oo of "food," and a single flicked r.

Not English "door" — a dental d, the long oo of "food," and a single flicked r.

दूर /d̪uːɾ/

door

Because the identical roman spelling maps onto a completely different English word, the risk here is not misplaced stress but wholesale substitution. Every bit of the syllable's duration belongs to the long vowel.

Listen: दूर

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Sound it out

d Voiced dental द. Slide the tongue tip forward until it rests against the back of the upper front teeth; the English position is noticeably further back.

oo Long ऊ, rounded and held. This is the vowel of "boot," not the diphthong English writes as oo in "door."

r One quick tap of the tongue tip. The vowel must stay pure right up to the contact rather than becoming r-coloured.

Hear it in a sentence

स्टेशन यहाँ से दूर है।

Sṭeshan yahaaṁ se door hai.

The station is far from here.

Listen: स्टेशन यहाँ से दूर है।

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"Sṭeshan yahaaṁ se door hai" uses se to mark the reference point, so the phrase is literally "far from here." Sṭeshan opens with a retroflex ट inside a cluster, so the tongue curls back at the start of the sentence and comes forward to the teeth for door.

Where English speakers slip

Reading it as the English word "door" gets all three segments wrong: an alveolar d, a diphthongised vowel, and a long rhotic. Take them in order — tongue to the teeth, then the long oo of "boot," then one brief tap and nothing more.