Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "तो" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce तो in Hindi?

तो is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /t̪oː/. It means “then / so (emphatic particle).” toh with a dental t and a long pure o — no glide, and no puff of air.

toh with a dental t and a long pure o — no glide, and no puff of air.

तो /t̪oː/

Length without emphasis is the combination English speakers find hardest to produce, and it is exactly what this word asks for: a long vowel in a syllable that takes no accent because it is a discourse connective.

Listen: तो

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

Sound it out

t Made against the back of the upper front teeth and released silently. An English t here would be alveolar and aspirated, which is two errors in one segment.

o Long ओ held in one lip position from beginning to end, unlike English "toe," which narrows the lips as it finishes.

Hear it in a sentence

ठीक है, तो कल मिलते हैं।

Ṭheek hai, to kal milte haiṁ.

All right, then see you tomorrow.

Listen: ठीक है, तो कल मिलते हैं।

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

"Ṭheek hai, to kal milte haiṁ" opens with ṭheek, which begins with the aspirated retroflex ठ — so the sentence puts a curled-back aspirated stop and a dental unaspirated one within three words. That pairing is the core Hindi consonant contrast in miniature.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers say "toe": alveolar, aspirated and diphthongised. Fix the tongue position first, since it is the most audible, then suppress the puff, then freeze the lips through the vowel. Confusing this with the correlative in agar ... to is a separate, grammatical issue.