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"Devanagari (Hindi)" or "Hindi - Transliteration (A → अ)" keyboard - which one is right for me?

There are two very different keyboards I have used to type in Hindi on your iPhone or iPad. The first one is Devanagari (Hindi) and the second one is Hindi - Transliteration (A → अ). Visit this page on instruction on how to enable them.


Devanagari (Hindi) 

In this keyboard you directly type using the vyanjan (व्यंजन) and matras (मात्रा)। You will need to press the keys for additional options or ⬆️ to see additional aksharas (अक्षर). You do have access to spell check. 


Hindi - Transliteration (A → अ)



To use keyboard you basically start typing as though you are spelling the hindi words in english. for e.g. hathi will be हाथी, bandar will be बंदर, shraddha will be श्रद्धा etc. iOS will suggest the Hindi word options, and it helps choose the right one.

Sometimes this keyboard can be frustrating when you are unable to find the right english letters to type to get to the word you have in mind. For e.g. I still haven't been able to figure out how to type एवं, and have tried the options I could think of - avum, ayvum, ayevum etc etc.

How to decide which of these two keyboard is right for me?

If you are very comfortable writing in Hindi (remember the spellings, and matras), I would advise using the Hindi keyboard directly. However if you are like me,  have predominantly used English on you devices for many years now and are trying to get back into writing Hindi the Hindi - Transliteration keyboard is a good place to start. You tend to use the spelling suggestions a lot as it is hard to always guess the letter combinations.

My advise is to use the transliteration keyboard to get comfortable with Hindi on the iPhone and then transition into the Devanagiri keyboard. Writing with Devanagiri keyboard is more precise and pure.

Currently I use both these keyboards, and usually fall back to transliteration when I need to whip out a quick message. I have created a more detailed blog on using the Devanagari keyboard.

Click here for detailed write-up on using Devanagari (Hindi) keyboard 

Click here (coming soon) for detailed write-up on using Hindi - Transliteration (A → अ) keyboard

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Location: California, USA

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