Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "साल" in Hindi?

saal with a long open aa and a clear front l — bright, not the dark l of English "call."

साल /saːl/

saal

The long vowel is easy to preserve in isolation but tends to shorten inside phrases like agle saal, where English rhythm wants to reduce the second word. Guard it especially there.

Listen: साल

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Sound it out

saa Plain s and a long आ, held for a full beat.

l A clear l with the tongue tip on the ridge and the tongue body low. English automatically darkens a word-final l, which pulls the vowel backward with it.

Hear it in a sentence

अगले साल मैं भारत जाऊँगा।

Agle saal maiṁ Bhaarat jaaooṁgaa.

Next year I am going to India.

Listen: अगले साल मैं भारत जाऊँगा।

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"Agle saal maiṁ Bhaarat jaaooṁgaa" uses the oblique agle before saal for a time expression, and Bhaarat takes no postposition as a destination. The future jaaooṁgaa ends with a nasalized ooṁ, the first-person marker.

Where English speakers slip

The dark l is the main problem, producing something like "sawl" with the tongue humped and the vowel retracted. Keep the tongue tip firmly on the ridge and the back of the tongue relaxed. The vowel then needs its full open quality rather than the English vowel of "salt."