Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "इंतज़ार करना" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce इंतज़ार करना in Hindi?

इंतज़ार करना is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɪn.t̪ə.zaːɾ kəɾ.naː/. It means “to wait.” in-tuh-ZAAR KUR-naa — the z comes from a nuqta, and the t in the middle is dental.

in-tuh-ZAAR KUR-naa — the z comes from a nuqta, and the t in the middle is dental.

इंतज़ार करना /ɪn.t̪ə.zaːɾ kəɾ.naː/

intazaar karnaa

Light, light, heavy, then light, heavy — the phrase climbs twice, peaking on -zaar and again on -naa. Only one syllable in intazaar has a long vowel, so the other two must stay genuinely short or the word sprawls.

Listen: इंतज़ार करना

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

Sound it out

in Short इ closed by a dental nasal that anticipates the following त, so the tongue is already on the teeth.

ta Dental त with no puff, plus a bare schwa — the lightest syllable in a long phrase.

zaar ज़ with its nuqta is a buzzing z borrowed from Persian, opening into a long aa and closing with a single tap.

karnaa The light verb: schwa, tap, then the long-vowelled infinitive ending.

Hear it in a sentence

मैं यहाँ आपका इंतज़ार करूँगा।

Maiṁ yahaaṁ aapkaa intazaar karooṁgaa.

I will wait for you here.

Listen: मैं यहाँ आपका इंतज़ार करूँगा।

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

"Maiṁ yahaaṁ aapkaa intazaar karooṁgaa" marks the person waited for with aapkaa, a possessive rather than an object marker, which is idiomatic and unlike English. The future karooṁgaa carries a nasalized oo, and yahaaṁ earlier in the sentence has a nasalized aa.

Where English speakers slip

Reading ज़ as j gives "intajaar," which sounds wrong to anyone who knows the word's Persian roots. The medial त also tends to become an American flap between vowels, turning it into something d-like; Hindi wants a clean dental stop with the tongue tip visibly forward.