Pronunciation of अंतर्राष्ट्रीय

[pcolagrosso_7423]

Namaste! I have a question regarding the pronunciation of the Hindi word अंतर्राष्ट्रीय, which I believe means "international" in English. Based on the pronunciation (TTS) available on Google Translate, this word is pronounced something like "antarrashtriya" (in Romanized form). This also corresponds to the romanized transliteration of the word which I was able to obtain via the "Hindi Dict Box" application on iPhone. What I don't understand is why there are not two "i" sounds in the pronunciation, since there seems to be two "i" (immediately before the ष्ट्र conjunct, and also one immediately after). In other words, why is the romanized transliteration not something like: "antarrishtriya"? Is there some rule or exception that I am missing?

[pcolagrosso_7423]

I think that I have found the answer to my own question. I was mistaking the character र्रा to be "ri" rather than "rra". What was actually confusing me was the "squiggly superspecript" above the headstroke which I was mistaking for "ि", when in actual fact this "squiggly superscript" is the conjunct form of "र", when "र" appears as the first element in the conjunct.

Another thing that was confusing me in the pronunciation of this word is that the symbol "ष्ट्र" is actually the conjunct of three different letters (i.e., ष + ट + र ).

So, the only question I have remaining now is what is the difference in pronunciation between र्रा and रा. Is it just that in the first case you pronounce the "र" sound for a longer period of time than in the second case?

[aaditsingh8_7448]

The different is of rra and ra. In the first you pronounce it with the double consonant 'r' and in the second you don't.