Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "याद" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce याद in Hindi?

याद is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /jaːd̪/. It means “memory (मुझे याद है = I remember).” yaad with a long open aa and a dental d — tongue on the teeth, released almost silently.

yaad with a long open aa and a dental d — tongue on the teeth, released almost silently.

याद /jaːd̪/

yaad

A single superheavy syllable — long vowel plus coda — which stands well on its own. In the sentences where it appears it is usually the semantic centre, so its length is easy to preserve; the risk is over-lengthening it into a drawl.

Listen: याद

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Sound it out

y A palatal glide, the same as English y in "yard."

aa Long आ, fully open. Give it the duration of the vowel in "father," not the clipped one in "yard."

d Voiced dental द, made with the tongue tip against the upper front teeth and released quietly with no puff.

Hear it in a sentence

मुझे उनका नाम याद नहीं है।

Mujhe unkaa naam yaad naheeṁ hai.

I don't remember his name.

Listen: मुझे उनका नाम याद नहीं है।

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"Mujhe unkaa naam yaad naheeṁ hai" builds the remembering construction on a dative experiencer, with yaad functioning as a predicate noun and hai as the verb — so there is no verb "to remember" at all. Naam right before it ends in an m, giving a smooth transition into the y glide.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers produce an alveolar d and often devoice it slightly at the end of the word, so it sounds halfway to t and halfway to retroflex ड. Two fixes: keep the tongue tip forward on the teeth, and keep the voicing running through the closure until you release.