We’ve already covered six of the eleven Hindi Vowels and that means that we’re over half way now! Can you remember the vowel’s we’ve seen so far? That’s right, we’ve learnt अ a, आ aa, इ i, ई ee, उ u and finally ऊ oo.

Although in alphabetical order our next vowel should be ऋ ri , we’re going to leave this one until the end because it’s the least common. So ready to learn our first new vowel for today? Here it is…

 e  

        If you can’t see the play button or if it wont work then click here for instructions on how to fix it!

This is the letter ए e. What does it look like? Well think of it as a man hopping around on one leg! The pronunciation of this vowel can be quite difficult because it’s not a sound we’re really used to in English, you can hear it pronounced above. All it takes is a little practice and you will get it perfect so don’t worry too much to begin with. Be sure to keep listening to the letter by pressing play on the button above!

The French (excuse my stereotype) should have no problem pronouncing this vowel.

If you’re familiar with French then ए e is pronounced exactly like the French vowel é, like in clé - key, or like “er” at the end of a French verb like manger, aller. But if you’re not familiar with French then try and say the English word ‘may’ really slowly. ए e is simply the first vowel sound you make when saying 'may’, after the m but before the second vowel sound.

एक ek - is the number One in Hindi. Can you see the letter ए e at the start? Great! That was easy!

Click play above to hear the two sample words of this letter - एक ek and कुत्ते kutte pronounced! 

When we want to add the letter ए e to a consonant we use this symbol; े .It’s just a little flick at the top. Can you remember our Hindi word for dog from last lesson? It was कुत्ता kuttaa - Dog. The plural form ie 'dogs’ is really easy, we simply drop the आ aa and add ए e ;

कुत्ते kutte - Dogs

Can you see the vowel ए e at the end? Great! Remember to listen to the word pronounced a few more times using the audio file just above. So are you ready for the next Hindi vowel? 

 ai  

This is the letter ऐ ai. It is just like ए e but has a flick on top. It looks a little bit like a cup of drink with a straw in it. Can you see?

ऐ ai is pronounced just like the e in the English word 'hen’ or 'pen’. Have a listen to it using the play button above, make sure you listen to it loads of times! Don’t get confused with ए e though! ए e is written e but pronounced as the first vowel in 'may’ and ऐ ai is written ai but pronounced as the e in 'hen’. Admittedly this is quite tricky to get your head around. So let’s see some example words; 

The Hindi word for Glasses or Spectacles is ऐनक ainak.  Can you see the letter ऐ ai at the start? Listen to this word by pressing the play button just below!

Now when we want to add ऐ ai after a consonant we use the symbol ै  (Notice here how this has two flicks where the symbol for ए e, े has just one). 

पैसा paisaa means 'money’ in Hindi. Can you see the vowel ऐ ai on the letter प pa at the start? अच्छा acchaa good! Make sure you listen to this word using the play button just above!

And that’s it for today! We’ve learnt two new vowels today, ए e and ऐ ai. Make sure you practice listening, speaking, reading and writing them! We have now seen 8 Hindi vowels, so there’s only 3 more left! 

Click here to go back to the Vowels Section.