Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "नमस्ते" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce नमस्ते in Hindi?

नमस्ते is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /nə.məsˈt̪eː/. It means “hello / hi.” nuh-muhs-TAY, not "nah-MAH-stay" — the first two vowels are murmured schwas and the final t is dental.

nuh-muhs-TAY, not "nah-MAH-stay" — the first two vowels are murmured schwas and the final t is dental.

नमस्ते /nə.məsˈt̪eː/

namaste

Two light schwa syllables run into a heavy final one built on the long vowel of -te, and that is where the modest prominence Hindi allows settles. Vowel length is doing most of the perceptual work: na- and ma- are genuinely short, -te is genuinely held.

Listen: नमस्ते

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

Sound it out

na A quick unstressed schwa, like the a in "about." Resist the yoga-studio "NAH" with a full open vowel — the inherent अ here is short and colourless.

mas Another schwa plus a clean s. The syllable goes by in a blink and carries no weight; do not let it swell into "mahs."

te Dental त: tongue tip flat against the back of the upper front teeth, no puff of air, then a long pure "ay" that does not glide off into a y.

Hear it in a sentence

नमस्ते, आप कैसे हैं?

Namaste, aap kaise haiṁ?

Hello, how are you?

Listen: नमस्ते, आप कैसे हैं?

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

Following namaste with "aap kaise haiṁ?" puts a long aa right up against the long e of -te, so greeting and question chain together with no pause. Keep the nasalization on haiṁ audible — it is the plural-polite ending that agrees with aap.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers arrive with "nah-MAH-stay" from yoga class, which gets three things wrong at once: full ah vowels where Hindi has schwas, stress on the middle syllable, and an alveolar English t with a breathy release. Hindi त is dental and unaspirated — tongue on the teeth, no puff — and the English version lands somewhere between त and ट, sounding to a Hindi ear like a consonant from the wrong series.