Learn about how to pronounce foreign words and half consonants
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Hello everyone, and welcome back to UrduPod101.com. This is Pronunciation series, lesson 4 - The Nuances of Urdu Pronunciation. Eric here. |
| Afrah: Assalam u Alaikum. Hello everyone, this is Afrah. So listeners, how is it going? Are you getting the hang of Urdu pronunciation and starting to feel more confident? |
| Eric: In this lesson, we will be going over a couple of concepts - foreign sounds and joined, or half, consonant sounds. |
Lesson focus |
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| Afrah: First, let’s talk about foreign sounds. Urdu gets a lot of its vocabulary from many foreign languages such as Hindi and Persian. |
| Eric: But what happens to the sounds that come from completely different languages? |
| Afrah: That’s an interesting question. The set of sounds used in Urdu is quite broad compared to some languages. In fact, if we compare Urdu with Hindi, Urdu has more sounds than Hindi. |
| Eric: Because of the diversity of the words and grammar coming from Persian and Arabic languages, the Urdu language is very rich when it comes to sounds and the representation of foreign words. |
| Afrah: Hence, there are no special words or sounds that are used only for the foreign words or foreign sounds. |
| Eric: So...Urdu speakers can represent all foreign words with the 38 consonants and 10 vowels? |
| Afrah: Yes, that’s right. With a set of 38 consonants and 10 vowels, you can represent all the foreign sounds and foreign words. And on the other hand, there are many sounds in Urdu that cannot be represented by using the English alphabet. |
| Eric: Can you give us an example? |
| Afrah: Sure. Urdu has a consonant known as ڑ (array). There are no words in English that can represent the sound for this word. The closest is (ray) but it doesn’t completely convey the sound of the Urdu word. |
| Eric: I see. So this means Urdu has more sounds than English and Hindi. |
| Afrah: That’s right. Now let’s talk about the half consonant. Until now, we’ve learned that an Urdu syllable is made up of a consonant and a vowel. Well, in some cases, we say that the consonant is half. |
| Eric: When the consonant is half, the pronunciation changes slightly. Remember that Urdu syllables come with the built-in vowel [A], but when we want sounds without the vowel [A], we can change it by chopping it off. |
| Afrah:Yes, meaning you must not pause as you move from the half consonant to the next sound. |
| Eric: Can you give us an example? |
| Afrah: Sure. For example, words like [pyaar] which means “love” or [Kya] which means “what,” and [Achcha] which means “good” use half consonants. |
| Eric: Okay I think that’s clear, but how will we know when we read it? |
| Afrah: If a consonant you read is chopped from the tail part and attached to the next letter, it becomes a half consonant. For example, when you read [Pyaar], the word has the letters pa and ya, and next is ra, but pa has been chopped off and attached to ya to make it [Pya]. After that of course, ra is added as usual to make [Pyaar]. |
| Eric: Listeners, this is very important, because it could change the meaning of the whole word. Let’s hear one example so that we can compare. |
| Afrah: Okay. The first word has a single consonant, [baat] which means “talk” |
| Eric: So this word is made up of the usual whole consonant. |
| Afrah: That’s right. It’s made up of ba and t and all of these are whole consonants, but listen carefully to the next sound which is a half consonant [bahar] that means “spring.” |
| Eric: Here ba has been chopped and attached to ha. So ba is a half consonant. Can you hear the difference? Afrah, could you say the two words once again? |
| Afrah: Sure, the first one is [baat] |
| Eric: Or “talk.” |
| Afrah: And the next is [bahar] |
| Eric: Or “spring.” Those words have really different meanings. Listeners, please be very careful to pronounce each word correctly, as it can change the entire meaning of the word. |
| Afrah: Also, listen carefully so you can catch the real meaning of the word without misunderstanding. |
| Eric: Yes, and the best way is to listen and repeat. |
| Afrah: We can’t stress this enough. |
| Eric: Listening and repeating is the quickest way to get these sounds down. Practicing them will make it easy for you, and you should also check the lesson notes for more examples of these words. |
| Afrah: That’s a good tip! |
Outro |
| Eric: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thanks for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! |
| Afrah: Goodbye.[Phr milenge] |
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