Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "पहले" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce पहले in Hindi?

पहले is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /pɛɦ.leː/. It means “before / first.” PEH-lay — two beats, with the h colouring the first vowel rather than being pronounced separately.

PEH-lay — two beats, with the h colouring the first vowel rather than being pronounced separately.

पहले /pɛɦ.leː/

pehle

A short coloured syllable feeding a long one, so the beat is at the end. Compared with pehlaa, the ordinal, only the final vowel differs, which means that vowel is carrying the entire grammatical distinction.

Listen: पहले

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Sound it out

peh Unaspirated प with a vowel lowered by the following ह toward the quality of "bed." The h is folded into the vowel, not spoken as a breath.

le Clear front l into a long ए, flat and unglided — this -e is the oblique ending, distinct from pehlaa's -aa.

Hear it in a sentence

पहले इसके बारे में सोचिए।

Pehle iske baare meṁ sochiye.

Think about it first.

Listen: पहले इसके बारे में सोचिए।

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"Pehle iske baare meṁ sochiye" uses pehle adverbially at the head of the clause, followed by the compound postposition iske baare meṁ. Sochiye is the polite imperative, so the sentence's courtesy sits in the verb ending rather than in a separate word.

Where English speakers slip

Reading it letter by letter gives "pe-ha-le" with three syllables. Native speech has two, with the h already inside the vowel. Aspirating the p is the second habit — the puff belongs to फ, and adding it here changes the consonant.