Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "शुरू होना" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce शुरू होना in Hindi?

शुरू होना is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʃʊ.ɾuː ɦoː.naː/. It means “to begin / to start.” shu-ROO HOH-naa — a short u then a long oo, and a voiced h on the second word.

shu-ROO HOH-naa — a short u then a long oo, and a voiced h on the second word.

शुरू होना /ʃʊ.ɾuː ɦoː.naː/

shuroo honaa

Short then long in the first word, then two long syllables in the second: the phrase has one clearly light syllable and three heavy ones. Because shu- and -roo are spelled with the same roman letters, the length difference between them is easy to lose and worth exaggerating in practice.

Listen: शुरू होना

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Sound it out

shu श is like English sh, followed by a short lax उ. The two u vowels in this word are different lengths, which is the point.

roo One tap of the tongue tip and a long ऊ. The tap must not turn into a lingering American r.

honaa Voiced ह, a steady long ओ, and the dental-n infinitive ending.

Hear it in a sentence

फ़िल्म आठ बजे शुरू होती है।

Film aaṭh baje shuroo hotee hai.

The movie starts at eight.

Listen: फ़िल्म आठ बजे शुरू होती है।

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

"Film aaṭh baje shuroo hotee hai" makes hotee feminine to agree with film, which is grammatically feminine in Hindi despite being an English loan. Aaṭh has the aspirated retroflex ठ, so there is a curled-tongue puff in the middle of the sentence.

Where English speakers slip

The two vowels get levelled — either both short or both long — which blurs the word. Hindi treats short उ and long ऊ as separate phonemes, so shuroo has a genuine step up in duration. The r is the other risk: keep it as a single quick flick between the two vowels.