Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "कभी नहीं" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce कभी नहीं in Hindi?

कभी नहीं is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /kə.bʱiː nə.ɦĩː/. It means “never.” kuh-BHEE nuh-HEEN — a breathy-voiced bh in the first word, and a nasalized ee at the end of the second.

kuh-BHEE nuh-HEEN — a breathy-voiced bh in the first word, and a nasalized ee at the end of the second.

कभी नहीं /kə.bʱiː nə.ɦĩː/

kabhee naheeṁ

Both words follow the same light-then-heavy pattern, so the phrase has two rising beats. That parallel shape makes it easy to say once you stop giving either first syllable an English-style stress, which would flatten the rise.

Listen: कभी नहीं

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Sound it out

ka The velar stop is completely dry here — English would puff it, and that puff belongs to ख — followed by a bare schwa.

bhee भ voiced and aspirated together, the sigh carrying into a long ई.

naheeṁ Dental n, a schwa, a soft voiced ह, and a long ई nasalized throughout with no consonant closure at the end.

Hear it in a sentence

मैं वहाँ कभी नहीं गया।

Maiṁ vahaaṁ kabhee naheeṁ gayaa.

I have never been there.

Listen: मैं वहाँ कभी नहीं गया।

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

"Maiṁ vahaaṁ kabhee naheeṁ gayaa" puts three nasalized vowels in one clause — maiṁ, vahaaṁ, naheeṁ — on three different vowel qualities. Gayaa at the end is the masculine perfective of jaanaa, so the sentence's gender shows only there.

Where English speakers slip

The bh flattens to a plain b, giving "kuh-BEE," and the nasal vowel in naheeṁ turns into a full n. Both are the same kind of error — replacing a Hindi-specific feature with the nearest English segment. Work on breathy voice and nasalized vowels separately, then reassemble the phrase.