Hindi · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "यात्रा" in Hindi?

Q: How do you pronounce यात्रा in Hindi?

यात्रा is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /jaː.t̪ɾaː/. It means “trip / journey.” YAA-traa — a dental t pressed straight against a tapped r, with long aa vowels on both sides.

YAA-traa — a dental t pressed straight against a tapped r, with long aa vowels on both sides.

यात्रा /jaː.t̪ɾaː/

yaatraa

Broad at both ends and compressed in the middle — long vowels bracket a tight consonant cluster that adds no beat of its own. That is what stops the word becoming three syllables.

Listen: यात्रा

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Sound it out

yaa य as a palatal glide opening into a long आ.

tra A stop made on the teeth running directly into a single tap — no vowel between them, and no aspiration on the t.

aa The final long आ, which carries the feminine noun's ending and must not shorten.

Hear it in a sentence

मैं भारत की यात्रा पर जा रहा हूँ।

Maiṁ Bhaarat kee yaatraa par jaa rahaa hooṁ.

I am going on a trip to India.

Listen: मैं भारत की यात्रा पर जा रहा हूँ।

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

"Maiṁ Bhaarat kee yaatraa par jaa rahaa hooṁ" uses kee because yaatraa is feminine and par to mark being on a journey. Bhaarat opens with the breathy-voiced भ, so the sentence has a breathy stop and a plain dental within a few syllables.

Where English speakers slip

English speakers hear tr- and produce their own cluster, which is alveolar and slightly retroflex-sounding. Hindi wants the t on the teeth and the r as a single flick. Inserting a vowel — "yaa-ta-raa" — is the other habit and adds a beat that does not exist.