Nasal vowel sounds

Why this is harder for Punjabi speakers than it sounds

Punjabi does have nasal sounds, but they attach to consonants — ਸਿੰਘ, ਪੰਜਾਬ — not to vowels standing on their own the way French does. French treats bon (nasal) and beau (oral, no nasal at all) as two completely different words that happen to share a base vowel sound. There is no Punjabi vowel that works the same way, so the ear has nothing to map it onto — it has to be learned as a new category, not translated from one that already exists.

The spelling adds a second trap on top of the sound: on, en and an look like three different vowels on the page but are one sound family, while om and im are not new sounds at all — French simply swaps n for m before b/p for spelling reasons only (nombre, important). Recognising which group a spelling belongs to, independent of how many letters it uses, is the actual skill this drill practises.

The 5 groups

The full rule, with the mirror-practice and pair-drill tips this word list is built from, is in Nasal Vowels.

The full word list

All 61 words the drill uses, grouped by which nasal sound they carry, with the Gurmukhi respelling for each.

Word list last updated 2026-08-13.

Keep going

• Nasal Vowels (full lesson)A2
• Oral Vowel SoundsA2
• Complete Pronunciation GuideA1
• Practise telling similar sounds apart by earGame