LingoDrop
Hindi · Pronunciation Guide
How do you pronounce "नया" in Hindi?
nuh-YAA — a bare schwa, a y glide, and a long aa; two beats, and the first is nearly weightless.
nayaa
The weight contrast here is about as sharp as this chapter offers: a bare schwa against a long open aa, with nothing in between to soften the step. Give the second syllable all the time and let the first one be a launch.
Listen: नया
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Sound it out
Hear it in a sentence
मैंने एक नया फ़ोन खरीदा।
Maiṁne ek nayaa fon khareedaa.
I bought a new phone.
Listen: मैंने एक नया फ़ोन खरीदा।
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"Maiṁne ek nayaa fon khareedaa" takes the ergative maiṁne because khareedaa is a perfective transitive, and nayaa is masculine to agree with fon. Fon begins with a nuqta फ़, a true f, so there is no aspirated p anywhere in the sentence.
Where English speakers slip
Learners read the spelling as "NIGH-ya" with a diphthong, or as "nay-yaa" with an English long a. Neither works: the first vowel is a genuine schwa and the second is a long open aa, with य acting as the consonant between them. The n should also be dental, not alveolar.