Bengali words for beginners
Turn familiar Bengali letters into 10 useful words. Read the script, hear the whole word, and use the English meaning to check what you understood.
Try a practice lesson →Choose Listen beside an available recording. Audio plays only when you ask.
Your first 10 Bengali words
| Word | English sound guide | Meaning and reading hint | Recording |
|---|---|---|---|
| আম | am | mango a + m: finish with m, without an extra inherent vowel. | Listen |
| আলু | alu | potato a-lu: open a followed by rounded u. | Listen |
| ইট | iṭ | brick i + tongue-tip ṭ. Do not add ô after the final consonant. | Listen |
| উট | uṭ | camel u + tongue-tip ṭ: one syllable. | Listen |
| কলা | kôla | banana kô-la: open rounded ô first, then open a. | Listen |
| গরু | goru | cow go-ru: the unmarked first vowel is o in this word. Word reading is not mechanical letter concatenation. | Listen |
| বাঘ | bagh | tiger Open a followed by gh; finish without an extra vowel. | Listen |
| জল | jôl | water jôl: one syllable, ending with l. A common India-oriented everyday word for water. | Listen |
| ছাতা | chhata | umbrella chha-ta: begin with an aspirated ch-like sound, then dental t. | Listen |
| ডিম | ḍim | egg ḍim: a voiced tongue-tip stop, i, then final m. | Listen |
Find familiar forms inside each word
Read each word with its own English meaning and hint. Use those examples to check attached signs and joined forms; isolated-letter labels alone do not determine a whole word’s pronunciation.
Compare these course examples using their own reading hints. Find a familiar letter or vowel sign in each word.
- আম — am, mango. a + m: finish with m, without an extra inherent vowel.
- আলু — alu, potato. a-lu: open a followed by rounded u.
Read, remember, and check
- Choose a few written forms and compare their English hints.
- Cover the hints and identify the letters in a different order.
- Practise with matching, mixing, flashcards, or a visual quiz.
Cover a word’s English meaning, recall it, then check the table. This is a small reading vocabulary, not a phrasebook or a complete language course.
Prepared by Learn Akshara from our beginner Bengali curriculum. English spellings are approximate learning aids. Writing-system reference: The Unicode Standard, South Asian Scripts. AI-generated pronunciation is a learning aid, not a guarantee of accuracy. See our audio sources and credits.