ح — he (hooded)
«he (hooded)» is a consonant of the Persian script, read as “h (breathy)”. A breathy h, like the h of "hand" but made deeper, in the throat — as if fogging a pane of glass. The older throat sound it descends from softened into this plain breath. For example, in the word “حالا” — now. The Persian alphabet has 32 letters in total. The skeleton without a single dot. The pair of ج and خ: the same shape, the dots decide. It appears, for example, in the word “صبح بخیر” — good morning.
In short
| Character | ح |
| Name | he (hooded) |
| Sound | h (breathy) |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 13th of 33: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ج and خ, appears in 235 words of this site.
How to type ح
- On a phone: add the Persian keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+062D and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 062D.
- Unicode code point: U+062D. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A breathy h, like the h of "hand" but made deeper, in the throat — as if fogging a pane of glass. The older throat sound it descends from softened into this plain breath
Other written forms
The same character is written differently on a shop sign and in a book. Here are all the forms you may meet.
| Form | Character | Note |
|---|---|---|
| initial | حـ | — |
| medial | ـحـ | — |
| final | ـح | — |
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- حالاkhâlânow
The character in the “ج ح خ — j and two h sounds” group
The same trick again. The dot inside makes "j"; no dot leaves a breathy h; a dot on top gives kh, deeper and rougher. The two h sounds must not be confused: حالا is "now", and خالا is already not a word but a typo.
Words with this character
- صبح بخیرsâbh bekheyrgood morning
- خداحافظkhâdâhâfezgoodbye
- حالت چطوره؟hâlet châtâre؟how are you?
- خوشحالمkhâshhâlamnice to meet you
- انگلیسی حرف میزنید؟anglesi harf mi-zânid؟do you speak English?
- حساب، لطفاhesâb, lâtfanthe bill, please
- صبحsâbhmorning
- حالاhâlânow
- حساب چنده؟hesâb chande؟how much is it?
- حمامhâmmâmbathroom
- حولهhâvletowel
- صاحبخانهsâhebkhânelandlord
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «he (hooded)» it is “h (breathy)”, as in the word “حالا”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 32 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Persian character ح read?
As “h (breathy)” — it is a consonant of the Persian script. A breathy h, like the h of "hand" but made deeper, in the throat — as if fogging a pane of glass. The older throat sound it descends from softened into this plain breath. For example, in the word “حالا” — now.
What is the letter ح called?
He (hooded). A character's name and its sound are different things in the Persian script: it is called “he (hooded)” and reads as “h (breathy)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can ح be confused with?
The skeleton without a single dot. The pair of ج and خ: the same shape, the dots decide. Similar characters are best studied side by side and deliberately compared: learned on different days, they stay separate and get mixed up at their first meeting inside a word.