LingoflyԿ կ — ken
«ken» is a consonant of the Armenian script, read as “k (no puff of air)”. A plain k without a puff of air. The Armenian alphabet has 39 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. The partner of the aspirated ք. Կա (ka) means 'there is', Քա is already a different word. It appears, for example, in the word “Բարի երեկո” (bari yereko) — good evening.
In short
| Character | Կ կ |
| Name | ken |
| Sound | k (no puff of air) |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 19th of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are մ and հ, appears in roughly every fifth word on this site.
How to type Կ կ
- On a phone: add the Armenian keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+056F 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 056F.
- Unicode code points: կ — U+056F, Կ — U+053F. With them, the characters can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A plain k without a puff of air
The character in the “triplets: voiced — voiceless — aspirated” group
The main difficulty of Armenian. Where you are used to two sounds (b and p), Armenian has three. Take բ 'b', պ 'p' without a puff, փ 'p' with a puff. Five such triplets, fifteen letters.
Words with this character
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, 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 — 39 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 Armenian character կ read?
As “k (no puff of air)” — it is a consonant of the Armenian script. A plain k without a puff of air.
What is the letter կ called?
Ken. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Armenian script: it is called “ken” and reads as “k (no puff of air)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can կ be confused with?
The partner of the aspirated ք. Կա (ka) means 'there is', Քա is already a different word. 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.