English to Hindi Typing
Type Hindi in English letters and get Devanagari with suggestions as you type. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
Type Hindi the way it is written in chats, in English letters, and each word turns into Devanagari when you press Space: namaste becomes नमस्ते, aap kaise hain becomes आप कैसे हैं. A list under the word shows the other spellings it could be, most likely first, for when the first is not the one you meant.
The spelling rules and a dictionary of 50,000 common Hindi words are loaded into the page, so the words you type are never sent to a server, and the tool keeps working if you go offline after it loads. The text is kept in this browser between visits.
How to use it
- Space, Enter or punctuation commits the highlighted word. On a computer keyboard, Enter commits without starting a new line; press it again for one.
- ↑ and ↓, or Tab move the highlight; a tap or click picks a word. Digit keys type digits.
- Esc keeps the word in English letters.
- Backspace straight after a commit brings back the English letters with the list open, to pick another word or retype it.
- Clicking a Hindi word opens its list again.
हिन्दी / English switches between typing Hindi and leaving letters as typed, as does Ctrl+G. Type email addresses and links in English mode: a word with digits or symbols in it stays as typed, but the first part of name.surname@… commits at its full stop. Convert all spells every English-letter word of the selection, or of all the text, in Hindi, so pasted Hinglish can be converted at once.
Capitals are ignored, except T, D, N, Sh, L and R inside a word, which ask for the retroflex letter: ghaNTaa for घण्टा, baRaa for बड़ा. Full stop as । (on by default) types the danda for a full stop, except after a digit, so 2.5 stays a number. Devanagari digits types १२३ for 123. Copy as Kruti Dev gives the text in Kruti Dev 010 keys, for forms and documents still kept in that font.
How the words are found
Hindi in English letters has no single spelling: कमल is kamal, काम is kaam or kam, and nothing in ram says whether राम or रम is meant. So each typed word is read every way the rules allow (a as अ or आ, t as त or ट, a vowel left out or written, n as anusvara or a half न), each reading costing more the looser it is. Readings that are real words in the dictionary are ranked by how common the word is in Hindi news and web text, less what the reading cost, and first when the letters typed are a spelling people use for that word. Spellings outside the dictionary come after, so a name or a new word can always be typed.
The dictionary holds the 50,000 most frequent words in a sample of IndicCorp v2, with the romanisations AI4Bharat's Aksharantar records for them.
Tested on Aksharantar's 5,661 held-out Hindi test pairs, whose spellings the dictionary leaves out, the first suggestion is the right word for 31% of them, and the right word is in the list for 50%. 69% of those words are outside the dictionary: rare words, names and English words in Devanagari, which typed text holds far fewer of. Counted by how often each word occurs in the IndicCorp sample, the first suggestion is right for 82% of the words typed, and the right word is in the list for 86%.
How Hindi sounds are typed
| Sound | Type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Short a, or none | a | kal → कल |
| Long ā (ा) | aa | kaam → काम |
| i (ि) | i | dil → दिल |
| ī (ी) | ee | geet → गीत |
| ū (ू) | oo | phool → फूल |
| e (े) | e | desh → देश |
| ai (ै) | ai | pair → पैर |
| o (ो) | o | mor → मोर |
| au (ौ) | au | aurat → औरत |
| ṛ (ृ) | ri | kripa → कृपा |
| ज्ञ | gy | gyaan → ज्ञान |
| Half न or anusvara (ं) before a consonant | n | ant → अन्त |
| ड़ | R | baRaa → बड़ा |
| ट and ण | T, N | ghaNTaa → घण्टा |
| ष | Sh | viShay → विषय |
| ज़ | z | zameen → ज़मीन |
Frequently asked questions
See also
- Hindi Typing — Type Hindi with the InScript or Remington layout, as exam typists do.
- Krutidev to Unicode Converter — Convert Kruti Dev 010 text to Unicode and back.
- Hindi Typing Test — Measure your Hindi typing speed.