Here are a few words, chosen for their usefulness to the traveler.  Keep your sentence structure simple.  Practice with friendly locals, and polish up your pronunciation.  You'll be surprised at the results, and will be able to pick up new words as you need them.  The polite forms have been given here, and you can also add "Sir", often pronounced "Saar".  or Madam to requests or questions.  The "~" symbol indicates where the object will go.  Usually before the verb.  There is a pronunciation guide at the bottom of the page.

greetings yes (yes, sir) no (no, sir) namaste han (hanji) nehin (nehinji) don't have I don't have a book nehin book nehin is there (do you have) ~ Do you have a room? ~ hai? room hai? don't you have ~ don't you have a room? nehin? room nehin? there is (I have) ~ Yes, I have a room ~ hai han, room hai where is ~ Where is the station? ~ kahan hai Station kahan hai? how much is ~ How much is a room? ~ kitnay Room kitnay? this that is us How much is this How much is that? is ke kitnay? us ke kitnay? please give ~ Please give coffee ~ laoji coffee laoji (I) want ~ don't want ~ ~ manktha hai ~ nahi mankta hai I want black coffee I don't want sugar black coffee manktha hai sugar nahi manktha hai a little a little sugar thoda thoda sugar big ~ small ~ big car small book barra ~ chotta ~ barra car chotta book I know ~ I don't know ~ ~ maalum hai ~ nahi maalum hai I know a little Hindi I don't know Hindi Hindi thodda maalum hai Hindi nahi maalum hai please go please come cheloo ji aavo ji Thank you Goodbye OK (English "thanks" is common) namaste teek hai NUMBERS one two three four five six seven eight nine ten ek do theen char panch chee saat aat nau das

Indian languages use a few more sounds than most Western languages.  Some of the constants, like "d" or "t" have a harder and a softer version than the ones in English.  There are also long and short vowel sounds, and you will be more easily understood if you greatly exaggerate the length of your long vowels.  For example, to say "yes" in Tamil you would say "aama", but it would not be wrong to pronounce it 'aaaaaaama'.  It would be very hard to over lengthen long vowel sounds.

The vowels are pronounced as follows.
The short "a" is like the sound in "aha".  
The long form - "aa" - sounds like the drawn out sound of "ah, yes"

The short "i" is like the sound in "ill".
The long form - "ii" - sounds like the drawn out sound of "eel"

The short "e" is like the sound in "hey".  
The long "ee" is like the drawn out sound of "hale"

The short "o" is like the sound in "snow".
The long "oo" is like the drawn out sound of "pole"

The short "u" is like the sound in "rue".
The long "uu" is like the drawn out sound of "rule"

The short sound "ai" is like the sound in "height".
There is no long form.

Rather than give you further complex explanations of pronunciations, we suggest you take a few minutes with a friendly waiter or room boy and ask him how to pronounce the words.  There are a few sounds in Indian languages that do not exist in Western languages, and you have to learn to hear and say them for yourself.

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