Learn to read Nepali
A short, active path into reading Nepali: learn how a Devanagari letter carries its own vowel, decode ten real words before the full alphabet, follow the verb to the end of the sentence, and read a small story before opening your first book.
Start here
1 sectionStart here: what this path does
- This path starts from no Nepali and ends with a short story whose pronunciation and English begin hidden.
- A Devanagari letter is not a letter in the English sense: it is a whole syllable, with a vowel already inside it.
- Knowing when that built-in vowel goes quiet is the single biggest thing between you and a Nepali page.
- The verb comes last in a Nepali sentence, and the small words come after their noun rather than in front of it.
- Stop after any checkpoint. The letter tables are for looking things up, not for memorising in one sitting.
This is short preparation for reading a book, not a grammar course. It teaches how a Nepali word comes apart into syllables, where the pieces of a sentence sit, and enough recurring words to get through a first page with help. You never have to write a Devanagari letter by hand.
Every Nepali word here is followed by a pronunciation guide in Latin letters. A bar over a vowel means it is held longer: ā is the a in father, ī the ee in see, ū the oo in moon, while a plain a is the small vowel in about. A dot under a letter — ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ṣ — means the tongue curls back and touches the roof of the mouth. And c on its own is the ch of church; ch is that same sound with a puff of air behind it; ś is a letter most speakers simply say as s.
house
घर
ghar
The large word is the spelling, ghar the pronunciation guide, the English the meaning. At checkpoints, the last two stay hidden until you reveal them.
How to use a checkpoint
Look at the Nepali first. Then reveal.
- घर
Two letters. The second one is quieter than it looks.
Show answer +Hide answer −
घरghar“house”. Say “ghar”.