Reading words with आ (part 1)
Today we continue with another reading exercise. Here is the part we cover today:
आम चख।
आप आए।
पत्र पढ़।
रट मत।
Now let me explain each sentences.
Sentence 1: आम चख।
Do you see the आ? आ makes a “aah” sound just like the “a” in “father”.
म makes a “m” sound. Together, आम makes an “aam” sound. And आम (aam) means mango.
The next word चख should be familiar to you. We had covered this word in previous sessions. Notice the first letter च. च makes a “cha” sound. The ख makes a “kha” sound. This is a stronger version of क (ka). चख is pronounced “chakh”. It means “[you] taste”.
आम चख। (aam chakh) means “[you] taste the mango”. It is something that you would say to a child. Don’t use this with your guests or hosts!
Sentence 2: आप आए।
The first letter of the first word, i.e. आ, should look familiar to you. It is the same as the first letter of the first word in Sentence 1 above! आ makes an “aah” sound, just like the “a” in “father”. The next letter is प. प makes a “pa” sounds.
आप (aap) and it means “you”. It is the formal version of “You” used with elders and equals.
The first letter of the second word should look familiar again. It is आ (aa). The next letter ए makes a “A” sound. It is a hard “A” as in the name of “A”. Just like the “a” in “aim”. We will right this sound as “e”.
आ (aah) + ए (e) makes “aae”. And आए (aae) means “came”.
आप आए। = aap aae = you came.
Sentence 3: पत्र पढ़।
पत्र is pronounce like “pa” and “rt” and the pronunciation help is “part”. Think of it as two syllables. And पत्र means “letter” like you would get in the mail from a friend.
पढ़ is pronounced like “pa” and “rd” as the “rd” in “bird”. The pronunciation help is written “pard” and it means “read”.
पत्र पढ़। means “read the letter”
Sentence 4: रट मत।
रट pronounced “rat” (probably should be written “rut” since that is what it sounds like. But we are using the convention that one “a” is the short “a” that is pronounced “uh”.) it means “memorize”
मत is pronounced “mat” (should probably be written as “mut” see the explanation in the previous line. It means “don’t”.
रट मत। = rat mat = don’t memorize.
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You can see above that the pronunciation key is almost as confusing as it is helpful. The sounds in Hindi are very precise, a lot more so than their English counterparts. Also, each symbol is pronounced only one way. I think it would be worth learning the actual Hindi script (called Devanagari). The flashcards are offered with just the Hindi script and English meaning, and Hindi script with the pronunciation help, with the English meaning. I recommend that you just stick with the Hindi script one.
May reading #3 (part 1) with pronunciation
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