This unit will teach you more of the sounds of Klingon. Don't worry if you can't say or hear them perfectly to begin with. Keep practising & you will get it.

Pronunciation:

Vowels each have one pronunciation.
a as in father
e as in ten
o as in bowl
u as the oo in pool
I as in it

I is uppercase to remind us that it is different from the pattern of 5 vowels we often see in foreign languages. The Klingon vowel sound written as I is not said like "ee", but rather as "ih" (as in "it"). Note I (capital i) versus l (small L) – the second has a small curl at the bottom in Duolingo's website font. The vowel I never has an adjacent vowel. The consonant l will always have at least one adjacent vowel.

q sounds much like an English "k", but from the back of the throat. The q does not include the "w" sound as in English words that begin with "qu". Even when q is followed by u, the two sounds do not blend. The Klingon word qul ("fire") sounds like the English word "cool", but with a stronger "c" sound. This is a different letter than Q explained later.

r is not usually said at the roof of the mouth like an American English "r", but with the tip of the tongue behind the teeth like the "r" in Spanish and some other languages.

S is similarly said with the tip of the tongue further back in the high roof of the mouth. It winds up sounding a bit like an English "sh", but should never be said like an "sh" (which is made by raising the middle of the tongue to the roof of the mouth). The S is also capitalized to help us remember the difference.

Adjectives

Klingon does not have adjectives as a separate class of words; instead, it has verbs which mean things such as "be handsome", "be smart", or "be big".

A sentence such as val torgh "Torg is smart" has the same grammar in Klingon (verb + subject) as yaj torgh "Torg understands", even though in English one sentence has an adjective and the other an active verb.

Note that the English translation includes the connecting word "is" when you use an adjective, but the Klingon translation just connects the subject directly to the verb without using any sort of connecting word. As verbs, these Klingon words already contain the "is" in their definitions like "be smart".

Vocabulary

jot – be calm (v)

yoH – be brave (v)

molor – Molor (male name)

qan – be old (not young) (v)

qoq – robot (n)

qul – fire (n)

tuj – be hot (v)

puq – child (n)

ram – night (n)

qur – be greedy (v)

SIv – wonder (v)

tIq – heart (n)

nIS – interfere (v)

bIr – be cold (v)

tIn – be big (v)