Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "जानना" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce जानना in Hindi?

जानना is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /dʒaːn.naː/. It means “to know (a person, language, skill).” JAAN-naa with a genuinely doubled n — hold the dental closure for an extra beat before releasing.

JAAN-naa with a genuinely doubled n — hold the dental closure for an extra beat before releasing.

जानना /dʒaːn.naː/

jaannaa

The doubled consonant makes the first syllable heavy by position on top of its long vowel, so this word sits slightly heavier at the front than jaanaa does. Consonant length is doing contrastive work here, which is unusual and worth deliberate practice.

Listen: जानना

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Sound it out

jaa Unaspirated ज plus long aa, identical to the opening of jaanaa, "to go."

nn A geminate dental nasal: the tongue stays on the teeth for roughly twice the normal duration. This length is the only thing separating this verb from jaanaa.

aa The long infinitive vowel closing the word.

Hear it in a sentence

मैं हिंदी जानता हूँ।

Maiṁ Hindee jaantaa hooṁ.

I know Hindi.

Listen: मैं हिंदी जानता हूँ।

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"Maiṁ Hindee jaantaa hooṁ" keeps the gemination in the inflected form jaantaa, so the doubled n survives conjugation. Compare it with jaataa hooṁ, "I go," which has no n at all — a one-consonant difference that changes the sentence entirely.

Where English speakers slip

English does not use consonant length contrastively within a word, so learners simplify the double n to a single one and end up saying "to go" when they mean "to know." Deliberately hold the n: think of the boundary in "ten nights" said as a single word.