LingoflyՑ ց — tso
«tso» is a consonant of the Armenian script, read as “ts' (with a puff)”. A ts with a puff of air. The Armenian alphabet has 39 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. It appears, for example, in the word “Ցտեսություն” (tstesut'yun) — goodbye.
In short
| Character | Ց ց |
| Name | tso |
| Sound | ts' (with a puff) |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 30th of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ք and ծ, appears in 531 words of this site.
How to type Ց ց
- 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+0581 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 0581.
- Unicode code points: ց — U+0581, Ց — U+0551. With them, the characters can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A ts with 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 ց read?
As “ts' (with a puff)” — it is a consonant of the Armenian script. A ts with a puff of air.
What is the letter ց called?
Tso. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Armenian script: it is called “tso” and reads as “ts' (with a puff)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.