Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "कितना" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce कितना in Hindi?

कितना is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /kɪt̪.naː/. It means “how much.” KIT-naa in two beats — a short lax i, a dental t, and a long aa; the schwa after त is deleted.

KIT-naa in two beats — a short lax i, a dental t, and a long aa; the schwa after त is deleted.

कितना /kɪt̪.naː/

kitnaa

A light closed syllable feeding a heavy open one. Schwa deletion is doing structural work here: spell the word out letter by letter and you get three light beats, which is not how anyone says it.

Listen: कितना

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Sound it out

ki Unaspirated क with a short इ, brief and lax like the vowel of "kit."

t Dental त closing the syllable, tongue tip on the upper teeth. Its inherent vowel drops out, which is what keeps the word to two beats.

naa A teeth-contact nasal opening into a long aa, which also marks masculine agreement.

Hear it in a sentence

इसकी कीमत कितनी है?

Iskee keemat kitnee hai?

How much does it cost?

Listen: इसकी कीमत कितनी है?

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"Iskee keemat kitnee hai?" switches to the feminine kitnee, because keemat is a feminine noun — so the final vowel changes while everything before it stays put. Iskee is feminine for the same reason.

Where English speakers slip

The t comes out alveolar and, in American English, often as a flap between vowels — which in Hindi lands near ड़ and confuses everything. It has to be a full dental stop. Lengthening the first vowel toward "keet" is the second habit worth breaking.