Skip to content
Trickly
Start free

Lesson 1 of 3

SHORTCUT

You already know the alphabet order

Devanagari and your own script share the same 5×5 grid, in the same order.

The question

How do I memorise 33 Devanagari consonants?

The trick

Devanagari, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Bengali all order their consonants on the same grid: five rows by where the sound is made in the mouth, five columns by how it is made. Your script and Hindi's are the same system wearing different clothes.

Worked example

  1. 1Row 1 — back of throat: (Malayalam ക ഖ ഗ ഘ ങ)
  2. 2Row 2 — palate: (ച ഛ ജ ഝ ഞ)
  3. 3Row 3 — roof of mouth: (ട ഠ ഡ ഢ ണ)
  4. 4Row 4 — teeth: (ത ഥ ദ ധ ന)
  5. 5Row 5 — lips: (പ ഫ ബ ഭ മ)
  6. 6Then the leftovers:

So: You don't — you already know the order. Only the shapes are new.

Remember it like this

Say your own alphabet out loud, and write the Devanagari letter beside each one. You are not learning 33 new letters — you are learning 33 new spellings for letters you already say.

In the exam

Every Hindi exam from Prathmic upwards begins with the varnamala. Learn it in grid order, never alphabetically as a list, because the grid is how the questions are grouped — 'name the nasal of the -varga' is a normal question and impossible to answer from a flat list.

Why it works

The grid was designed by Sanskrit grammarians over two thousand years ago and every major Indian script inherited it. Column 1 is plain, column 2 adds a puff of air, column 3 adds voice, column 4 adds both, column 5 is the nasal. You have used that logic your whole life without naming it.

Explain this to my childGet the words to teach it, in your language

Try it yourself

0/4 correct
  • 1

    Which row is प फ ब भ म made with?

  • 2

    What is the nasal (5th letter) of the त row?

  • 3

    How many consonants are in the five main rows? (number only)

  • 4

    Which letter is क with a puff of air added?