Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "काम करना" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce काम करना in Hindi?

काम करना is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /kaːm kəɾ.naː/. It means “to work.” kaam KUR-naa — a long aa in the noun, a short schwa in the verb, and neither k aspirated.

kaam KUR-naa — a long aa in the noun, a short schwa in the verb, and neither k aspirated.

काम करना /kaːm kəɾ.naː/

kaam karnaa

The phrase is heavy-light-heavy: long aa, short schwa, long aa. That alternation is characteristic of Hindi's very large family of noun-plus-karnaa compounds, and hearing it as one rhythmic unit rather than two separate words is the goal.

Listen: काम करना

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Sound it out

kaam Unaspirated क, long आ, and a bilabial m. This noun does the semantic work; the verb is just a light carrier.

kar Same consonant, but now with a schwa and a tapped r — the vowel contrast between kaam and kar is the whole rhythm of the phrase.

naa The infinitive suffix, teeth for the n and a long open vowel to finish.

Hear it in a sentence

मैं एक दफ़्तर में काम करता हूँ।

Maiṁ ek daftar meṁ kaam kartaa hooṁ.

I work in an office.

Listen: मैं एक दफ़्तर में काम करता हूँ।

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

"Maiṁ ek daftar meṁ kaam kartaa hooṁ" splits the compound around nothing — kaam and kartaa stay adjacent — while daftar takes meṁ for location. Daftar has a nuqta फ़, so the middle consonant is a true f, and its final schwa is deleted.

Where English speakers slip

Both k's tend to arrive with English aspiration, and the schwa in kar tends to get lengthened toward "car" with an American r. Keep the two vowels sharply different in length, tap the r once, and let neither consonant puff.