Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "रेस्टोरेंट" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce रेस्टोरेंट in Hindi?

रेस्टोरेंट is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ɾeːs.ʈoː.ɾeːɳʈ/. It means “restaurant.” rays-ṬOH-reṇṭ — the borrowed word is respelled with retroflex ट and ण, so the tongue curls back three times.

rays-ṬOH-reṇṭ — the borrowed word is respelled with retroflex ट and ण, so the tongue curls back three times.

रेस्टोरेंट /ɾeːs.ʈoː.ɾeːɳʈ/

resṭoreṇṭ

Three heavy syllables with long vowels throughout, which makes the word slow. Hindi has reshaped an English loan into its own retroflex system, so the rhythm is Hindi even though the vocabulary is not.

Listen: रेस्टोरेंट

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Sound it out

res One quick contact of the tongue tip, a long flat ए, and an s to close the syllable.

ṭo ट is retroflex: tongue tip curled up and back, released without aspiration into a long ओ.

reṇṭ Another tap, a long e, then ण and ट — a retroflex nasal followed by a retroflex stop, with the tongue staying curled back for both.

Hear it in a sentence

यह रेस्टोरेंट बहुत अच्छा है।

Yeh resṭoreṇṭ bahut achchhaa hai.

This restaurant is very good.

Listen: यह रेस्टोरेंट बहुत अच्छा है।

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

"Yeh resṭoreṇṭ bahut achchhaa hai" treats the loanword as masculine, which is why achchhaa takes -aa. Achchhaa's geminated affricate with an aspirated release is a Hindi-native difficulty sitting right next to a borrowed word full of retroflexes.

Where English speakers slip

The temptation is simply to say the English word, which supplies alveolar consonants and English stress on the first syllable. Hindi has genuinely nativised it: curl the tongue back for every ट and ण, keep the vowels long, and let the second syllable carry the weight.