How many letters are in the Hindi alphabet?

Hindi has 11 vowels and 33 consonants — 44 core letters. Counts of 46, 48 or 52 appear because some lists include extra vowels, conjunct letters like क्ष and ज्ञ, and borrowed sounds such as ज़ and फ़.

Is Hindi hard to learn for English speakers?

Moderately. The US Foreign Service Institute rates Hindi Category III — about 1,100 hours to professional proficiency, harder than Spanish or French but easier than Arabic, Chinese or Japanese. Speaking comes faster than most people expect; the script and the gender system are the real work.

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How do I write my name in Hindi?

Q: How do I write my name in Hindi?

You transliterate it — write the same sounds using Devanagari letters — rather than translate it. Every consonant already contains a short 'a', so a consonant with no vowel after it needs a halant stroke: क् is a bare 'k'.

You transliterate it — write the same sounds using Devanagari letters — rather than translate it. Every consonant already contains a short 'a', so a consonant with no vowel after it needs a halant stroke: क् is a bare 'k'.

Skip the theory: our free tool writes any name for you, and shows you why each letter is what it is.

Three worked examples

SARAH → sa + ra → सारा. The final h is silent in English, so it is not written.

JOHN → jo + n, with the n bare → जॉन.

DAVID → de + vi + d → डेविड. Note ड, not द: the English D is the hard retroflex one.

The four mistakes

Forgetting the halant. जोन reads "jona", not "John".
Using द for an English D. द is the soft dental sound of the Spanish donde. English D is ड.
Writing silent letters. Hindi writes sound, not spelling.
Doubling letters. Emma has one m sound: एमा.

The full letter-by-letter table, with more names worked through, is in our guide to writing your name in Hindi.

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