Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "सही" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce सही in Hindi?

सही is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /sə.ɦiː/. It means “right / correct.” suh-HEE — a throwaway schwa, a soft voiced h, and a long tense ee that carries the word.

suh-HEE — a throwaway schwa, a soft voiced h, and a long tense ee that carries the word.

सही /sə.ɦiː/

sahee

Weight is all at the back: a short first syllable feeding a long second one. Because Hindi ह is voiced and weak, the boundary between the syllables is soft, and the word can sound almost like a single long vowel with a murmur in the middle.

Listen: सही

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Sound it out

sa s with a bare inherent vowel; the syllable exists mainly to get you to the h.

hee Voiced ह — the folds are already vibrating — running into a long ई. In connected speech the h can weaken until the two vowels nearly merge.

Hear it in a sentence

आपने सही काम किया।

Aapne sahee kaam kiyaa.

You did the right thing.

Listen: आपने सही काम किया।

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"Aapne sahee kaam kiyaa" uses the ergative aapne, since kiyaa is a perfective transitive, and sahee stays invariant before the masculine kaam. Kiyaa ends in a long aa that agrees with kaam, so the agreement shows in the verb rather than the adjective.

Where English speakers slip

Learners give the h an English-style voiceless burst, which artificially separates the two syllables and puts a false stress on the first. Hindi's ह is voiced and light. The other slip is shortening the final vowel, which is long and tense, not the lax i of "sit."