Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "कुछ नहीं" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce कुछ नहीं in Hindi?

कुछ नहीं is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /kʊtʃʰ nə.ɦĩː/. It means “nothing.” kuchh nuh-HEEN — an aspirated affricate at the end of the first word, a nasalized vowel at the end of the second.

kuchh nuh-HEEN — an aspirated affricate at the end of the first word, a nasalized vowel at the end of the second.

कुछ नहीं /kʊtʃʰ nə.ɦĩː/

kuchh naheeṁ

The phrase is light-heavy in each word: a short syllable then a long one. The aspirated release in the middle acts as a bridge, so the two words run together into what sounds like a single four-beat unit.

Listen: कुछ नहीं

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Sound it out

ku Dry unaspirated क with a short lax उ.

chh छ released with a genuine puff, which then runs straight into the dental n of the next word.

naheeṁ A dental nasal, a schwa, a soft voiced h, and a long ई nasalized from beginning to end.

Hear it in a sentence

मुझे कुछ नहीं चाहिए।

Mujhe kuchh naheeṁ chaahiye.

I don't want anything.

Listen: मुझे कुछ नहीं चाहिए।

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

"Mujhe kuchh naheeṁ chaahiye" uses the dative mujhe and the invariant chaahiye, and mujhe's breathy झ sits right before kuchh's aspirated छ. Two different kinds of breath in two consecutive words makes this a demanding opening.

Where English speakers slip

Two Hindi-specific features get mapped onto English's smaller inventory: the puff on chh disappears, and naheeṁ acquires a full n. Practise the two words separately — one for the aspiration, one for the nasal vowel — before joining them.