Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "सब" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce सब in Hindi?

सब is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /səb/. It means “all / everything.” sub, with a colourless schwa and a voiced b that stays voiced right to the end.

sub, with a colourless schwa and a voiced b that stays voiced right to the end.

सब /səb/

sab

A short vowel closed by a consonant: heavy by position, but very brief in real time. Alongside the long-vowelled quantifiers nearby it should sound noticeably compact, and stretching it is the commonest rhythmic slip.

Listen: सब

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Sound it out

sa The inherent vowel here is the one in "cup," not the one in "cap" or "car" — colourless and unrounded after a plain s.

b Unaspirated ब, fully voiced through the closure. English speakers half-devoice final voiced stops; Hindi keeps the buzz going.

Hear it in a sentence

मैंने सब कुछ कर लिया।

Maiṁne sab kuchh kar liyaa.

I did everything.

Listen: मैंने सब कुछ कर लिया।

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

"Maiṁne sab kuchh kar liyaa" uses sab kuchh as a fixed pair meaning "everything," and the ergative maiṁne appears because kar liyaa is a perfective transitive. Kuchh has an aspirated छ, so a puff of air lands right between sab and kar.

Where English speakers slip

Two small things drift. The vowel gets opened to "sahb," and the final b gets devoiced toward p, which is an automatic English habit at the end of a word. Keep the vowel neutral and let the voicing continue through the lip closure until you release it.