Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "वाक़ई" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce वाक़ई in Hindi?

वाक़ई is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /ʋaː.qə.iː/. It means “really.” vaa-qa-EE — that dot under क़ makes it a uvular q, made much further back in the throat than an English k.

vaa-qa-EE — that dot under क़ makes it a uvular q, made much further back in the throat than an English k.

वाक़ई /ʋaː.qə.iː/

vaaqaee

Long, short, long — the schwa dips between two heavy syllables, and the vowel hiatus at the end stretches the finish further. Many speakers do simplify the q to a plain k, which does not change the rhythm but does flatten the word's Arabic-via-Persian character.

Listen: वाक़ई

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

Sound it out

vaa व as a loose approximant between v and w, opening into a long आ.

qa The nuqta on क़ marks a uvular stop: the very back of the tongue closes against the uvula, well behind क's position, and the sound is deeper and duller than a k.

ee A long ई in hiatus after the schwa, with no consonant between them — so the word ends in two vowels in a row.

Hear it in a sentence

यह वाक़ई सच है।

Yeh vaaqaee sach hai.

It's really true.

Listen: यह वाक़ई सच है।

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

"Yeh vaaqaee sach hai" pairs the emphatic adverb with sach, whose unaspirated च should release completely dry. The sentence therefore contrasts a very far-back consonant, the uvular q, with a very far-forward one, the palatal ch.

Where English speakers slip

The nuqta is almost always ignored, giving "vaakaee" with a plain velar k. To find the uvular position, start from a k and slide the tongue backwards until the closure feels like it is happening in your throat rather than your mouth. The other slip is collapsing the final vowel hiatus into one syllable.