Basic Nepali for Travelers - Village Volunteers（基本的尼泊尔为旅行者村志愿者）.pdf

Basic Nepali for Travelers This is a brief introduction to Nepali, the national language of Nepal. This introduction contains basic instruction about pronunciation and important words and phrases. Anywhere you travel in Nepal, the ability to communicate in Nepali will greatly enhance your experience. Even if you do not plan on studying the language in-depth, we strongly suggest learning and using basic greetings and phrases. The locals will greatly appreciate your efforts and will be all the more welcoming to you during your stay. If you would like to complete a beginning course in Nepali, there are a number of self-study books and tapes. Lonely Planet‟s Nepali Phrasebook (2002) is one of the more helpful books. Pronunciation Nepali is written in the Devanagari script, which is also the script used for Sanskrit, Hindi, and many other languages. There are 67 characters, each with only one pronunciation. The Devanagari script is not used in this guide; however, a list of the Devanagari characters can be found at the end of this document. Nepali has six vowels and two diphthongs. Five of the vowels can also have nasal pronunciations, which will be indicated by a karat (^) over the letter. The nasals are pronounced with the airstream coming out of the nose, which can also be accomplished by putting a weak „n‟ at the end of the syllable in which the nasal vowel appears. a/â „u‟ in cup e/ê „e‟ in bet ah/âh „a‟ in father o „o‟ in hot i/î „ee‟ in see, but shorter