Learn Bengali

Start at the alphabet

The Bengali on-ramp is written by hand, not generated, and it is 213 cards long. Every card is spoken in a recorded Bengali voice, and what you get right is scheduled for review rather than shown again at random. This is the shorter, starter size of on-ramp; most languages here have about 480 cards.

• 47letters
• 10digits
• 16pronunciation rules
• 100core words
• 20everyday phrases
• 20sentences

Three of the pronunciation cards, exactly as the on-ramp teaches them:

• ক — the built-in vowel is “ô” (as in “or”), not “a” — ক alone is “kô”কথা — word, talk
• কা — the আ-kar া is written AFTER the consonantকাজ — work
• কি — the ই-kar ি is written BEFORE the consonant but spoken after it; ঈ-kar ী goes after and sounds the sameকিছু — something

Your first Bengali phrases

The first phrase and sentence cards of the on-ramp, each spoken in a recorded voice:

• আপনি কেমন আছেন? AP-ni KE-mon A-chhen — how are you?
• আমি ভালো আছি A-mi BHA-lo A-chhi — I’m fine
• অনেক ধন্যবাদ O-nek DHON-no-bad — thank you very much
• আমি ছাত্র। A-mi CHHA-tro — I am a student.
• আমার নাম আনা। A-mar NAM A-na — My name is Ana.

What Bengali actually costs a beginner

The built-in vowel is the first surprise: ক on its own is kô, not ka, and Bengali's inherent vowel is closer to the o of or than to any a. The second is the ই-kar, written to the left of its consonant and pronounced to the right of it — the eye and the ear disagree, and only practice settles it. After those come the conjuncts, where two consonants fuse into a single shape that sometimes resembles neither. Every one of these is a card with a recorded Bengali voice, and the words and sentences are spelled the way Bengali actually spells them.