Lesson #14: Consonants Part 4; त ta, थ tha, द da, ध dha and न na
We’ve got quite a way through the Hindi Consonants now - we’ve learnt about a whole 15 letters! So firstly well done for getting this far! Do you think you’re ready to see a new group now? Great! Let’s get to it! Here’s the letters we’re going to be learning today…
This group is known as the Dentals. Hopefully they don’t look too confusing! But rest assured by the end of the lesson you should have them mastered! Enough chit chat then, let’s get to it. The first letter of this group is;
ta
This the letter त ta. But wait - hang on second - didn’t we learn the letter ट ta last time? How can there be two ta’s? Well the bad news is there are two different ta’s in Hindi! But they are completely separate letters with different sounds. Last time we learnt that ट ta has a big fat “t” sound, well this त ta has a light tinny sound. Listen to it by clicking play above. Put your tongue right behind your top front teeth and say “ta” - that’s the sound त ta makes! Be sure to listen to it loads of times.
The Hindi word for “lock” is ताला taalaa - I hope you can spot our new letter here! You can hear this word pronounced by clicking play above. So are you ready to move on to the next letter now?
tha
This the letter थ tha. This letter looks quite like a swan to me, don’t you think? And yep you might have guess it, this is the aspirated version of the letter त ta. You remember what aspirated means right? That’s right, you make the sound of the letter त ta but with lots of air! Hear the letter spoken by clicking play above. Be sure that you can distinguish थ tha and ठ tha - they have very different sounds but can easily be confused!
Hand in Hindi is हाथ haath - can you spot our new letter here? Excellent! Of course you don’t need me to tell you again that you can hear the word by clicking play above! Well that’s two of five letters done, let’s move on again then!
da
This the letter द da. And yep, as well as being two t’s in Hindi there’s also two d’s! This letter is pronounced by putting your tongue behind your top front teeth and making a light tinny ‘da’ sound, द da, द da, द da - got it? Keep listening to the letter!
One of my favourite Hindi words is the word दरवाज़ा darvaazaa - it means 'door’. I don’t know about you but I think this is a really fun word to say… दरवाज़ा darvaazaa! Can you spot out new letter at the start? Good! Ok let’s move on again, here goes…
dha
This the letter ध dha. You know what’s coming now don’t you? This is the Aspirated version of the letter द da! I think this letter looks a bit like a telephone being held down by a wire - can you see? Again be careful to not confuse this letter with the letter ढ dha -they’re both written dha but they are very different letters!
दूध doodh means Milk. Can you spot our new letter ध dha here? Great! This word also starts with the letterद da we learnt earlier in the lesson - two for the price of one! Now are you ready for the final letter of this group?
na
This the letter न na. This looks a bit like a random leg sticking out form a T, yeah? The pronunciation of this letter is super easy - it’s just a normal English 'n’ sound, like in 'nap’ or 'net’. Be sure to listen to it above. This letter is very common so we can’t just brush over it like we have for the other 'n’ letters!
The Hindi word for salt is नमक namak - a nice easy word. Can you spot our letter here? Super!
And wow that’s it for another lesson. We’ve now covered four groups, that’s a whole 20 Hindi letters. Which means we’re over half way - hopefully you haven’t got too bored yet! As always if you have any questions please just leave a comment below and I’ll certainly try my best to help!
One really important point from this lesson is that there are two “ta”, “tha”, “da” and “dha” ’s in Hindi - and they are completely different letters so it’s really important to be able to tell them apart! You may want to head back to the last lesson here to refresh your knowledge of those letters to make sure you can tell them apart!
