Bengali-influenced English has a sound of its own, soft and rounded and musical, and it comes with a set of consonant shifts that are unusually consistent: "v" becomes "b" or a breathy "bh", "s" tends toward "sh", "z" becomes "j", "f" becomes "ph", and the vowel "a" often rounds toward "o", so "Bengal" itself is "Bongo" in the language. A listener meeting it for the first time hears "bhery good" for "very good", "sheat" for "seat", "jero" for "zero", and "o-ffice" with a rounded first vowel, and may not connect them to the words. What you will learn: • Bengali in one minute • Consonant shifts • Vowel shifts • Rhythm and melody • Particles and discourse words • The decode routine: undo the shift • Practice: decode the sentence • Listening strategies • Self-check questions to test your ear Level: B1–B2. Self-study: listen, then take the quizzes. Audio voiced with AI from an original script by Dr. Rashmi R Nair.