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Hindi · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "की" in Hindi?
kee with a long tense vowel and a dry k — identical to the English word "key" except that the k must not puff.
kee
Heavy in vowel length, unstressed in the phrase: as a postposition it clings to the noun before it, so maaṁ-kee runs together with the beat on the noun. The vowel still must not shorten, since the short-vowel version is the conjunction ki.
Listen: की
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
यह मेरी माँ की किताब है।
Yeh meree maaṁ kee kitaab hai.
This is my mother's book.
Listen: यह मेरी माँ की किताब है।
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"Yeh meree maaṁ kee kitaab hai" makes both meree and kee feminine — but for different reasons. Meree agrees with maaṁ, the possessor, and kee agrees with kitaab, the thing possessed. The nasalized aa of maaṁ sits right before kee, so keep the nasality contained in that vowel.
Where English speakers slip
Two failures dominate. Aspirating the k pushes it toward ख, and shortening the vowel collapses की into कि — a possessive turning into a conjunction. Learners who have not yet internalised that Hindi vowel length is phonemic tend to treat both as free variation, which is exactly wrong.