Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "घड़ी" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce घड़ी in Hindi?

घड़ी is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɡʱə.ɽiː/. It means “watch / clock.” ghuh-ṚEE — a breathy-voiced g, a bare schwa, a retroflex flap, and a long ee.

ghuh-ṚEE — a breathy-voiced g, a bare schwa, a retroflex flap, and a long ee.

घड़ी /ɡʱə.ɽiː/

ghaṛee

The word is back-loaded, with a schwa run-up into a long vowel, but the breathy onset gives the first syllable more audible time than its vowel deserves. That extra time is aspiration, not prominence.

Listen: घड़ी

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Sound it out

gh घ needs voicing and breath simultaneously: the back of the tongue closes with the folds buzzing, then a warm sigh escapes on release.

a A bare schwa, so brief it is almost absorbed by the breathiness before it.

ṛee ड़ flicks the curled tongue tip forward once against the roof of the mouth, opening into a long tense ई.

Hear it in a sentence

घड़ी में तीन बज रहे हैं।

Ghaṛee meṁ teen baj rahe haiṁ.

The clock shows three o'clock.

Listen: घड़ी में तीन बज रहे हैं।

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

"Ghaṛee meṁ teen baj rahe haiṁ" uses baj rahe haiṁ for a clock striking, and teen has a dental त and a dental न. So the sentence moves from a breathy velar and a retroflex flap into a pair of teeth-contact consonants.

Where English speakers slip

Two Hindi-specific sounds go missing at once: the breathy g flattens to a plain g and the flap becomes a d, leaving "guh-dee." Build them separately — practise the flap on its own, then add a sighed voiced g in front of it.