Romanized Nepali Typing Guide: Every Letter With Examples

Romanized typing lets you write Nepali with a normal English keyboard. You type the sound, and the Nepali typing tool turns it into Unicode Nepali. This cheat sheet covers every letter and sign, with examples you can try straight away.

The basic idea

Type Nepali words the way they sound in English letters. Consonants carry a short "a" sound by default, so ka and k both give क. Add a vowel to change the sound: ki gives कि, ko gives को.

Vowels

Tip: the most common spelling mistake is using a single vowel where a double one is needed. ki is कि but kii is की. paani gives पानि, while the correct पानी needs paanii.

Consonants

Capital letters matter

Capital T, Th, D, Dh, N and Sh give the retroflex letters ट, ठ, ड, ढ, ण and ष. Lowercase gives त, थ, द, ध, न and श. Compare:

• Tikaa gives टिका, but tikaa would give तिका.
• raaShTra gives राष्ट्र, but raashTra gives राश्ट्र.

Be careful when your phone capitalises the first letter of a sentence: Nepaal gives णेपाल. Turn off auto-capitalisation or retype the first letter in lowercase.

Joined letters (conjuncts)

Two consonants next to each other join automatically. You don't need any special key.

Three special shortcuts:

• ksh or x gives क्ष
• tr gives त्र
• Gy gives ज्ञ, as in Gyaan for ज्ञान

Signs

A word ending in a consonant keeps its normal form, so ghar is घर. When a word really ends in halant, like गर्छन् or पढ्नुस्, add a backslash: paDhnus\.

Numbers and punctuation

Keeping English words in English

Put English words in curly braces to stop them from being converted:

{Facebook} maa phoTo haaleko chhu gives Facebook मा फोटो हालेको छु. (Note the capital T in phoTo: with a lowercase t you'd get फोतो.)

This is handy for brand names, email addresses and website links.

Practice sentences

Try them now in the Nepali typing tool. Each result also appears in Preeti, so you can paste it into older documents too. If something comes out wrong, our list of common Nepali typing mistakes will help.