LingoflyHow to read in Armenian
Aybuben: 39 letters, the stress almost always on the last syllable. The script is called “Aybuben” (written in itself as “Այբուբեն” (aybuben)). The writing course covers them all, plus one more sign, ւ, that does not count as a letter. The characters come a few per session — in two or three weeks a shop sign stops being a picture.
Thirty-nine letters, left to right
Mesrop Mashtots invented the aybuben in 405 — and invented it so that one letter gives one sound. There are no silent letters and no combinations like 'sh' or 'ch': 'sh' and 'ch' have letters of their own.
It reads left to right, like English. Every letter has two shapes — uppercase and lowercase, just like at home: Ա and ա.
The exceptions are few. ու (u) is two letters read 'oo'. ե and ո at the start of a word give 'ye' and 'vo': Ես (yes) is 'yes', Ոչ (voch) is 'voch'. And և is one letter with two sounds, 'yev'.
The stress almost always lands on the end
The rule almost always holds: the stress falls on the last syllable.
barEV, shnor-ha-ka-lut-yun, ye-re-VAN. Even in long words there is nothing to guess — the end.
The main caveat: if the word ends in -ը (that same muffled sound), the stress retreats to the syllable before it: a-NU-nə. A few words are exceptions, learned one by one: i-HAR-ke (of course), MI-te (really?).
| Word | Where the stress lands |
|---|---|
| Բարև (barev) — barEV | the last syllable |
| Անունը (anunə) — a-NU-nə | the syllable before -ը |
- Անունըa-NU-nəthe name (with the article)
With a puff and without: կ versus ք
Armenian has pairs of consonants that an untrained ear hears as the same sound — and Armenian hears as different words.
Without a puff (կ, պ, տ, ծ, ճ) — the air does not come out in a burst. Hold your palm to your mouth: it will feel nothing.
With a puff (ք, փ, թ, ց, չ) — like English k, p, t at the start of a word: the palm will feel the burst of air. Here English helps: these five sound exactly like their English counterparts.
In the course transliteration the puff is marked with an apostrophe: k', p', t'. Telling the pairs apart by ear does not come at once — that is normal; listen to the audio.
| Without a puff | With a puff | The sound |
|---|---|---|
| կ | ք | k |
| պ | փ | p |
| տ | թ | t |
| ծ | ց | ts |
| ճ | չ | ch |
Punctuation lives inside the word
Armenian punctuation is not built like English: the mark stands not at the end of the phrase but over the stressed syllable of the word it belongs to.
- ՞ — the question: Ինչպե՞ս ես (inchpes es) (how are you?). The question is about how — so the mark stands there;
- ՜ — the exclamation, also over the word;
- ։ — the full stop at the end of a sentence (two dots stacked, not a colon);
- ՝ — a short pause, roughly our comma.
So there will be no ? anywhere in an Armenian text, and the sentence will end on ։.
The whole alphabet
In this guide the letters came in order of usefulness for reading. Below is the canonical Mashtots order. The aybuben is taught this way at school, and it stands this way in dictionaries.
The first two letters gave the alphabet its name: այբ plus բեն — aybuben.
The last two letters came later: օ replaced the pair աւ, and ֆ was needed for loanwords. ու (u) and the ligature և became letters in the spelling reform, and ւ left the alphabet.
| Order | Letters |
|---|---|
| 1–10 | ա բ գ դ ե զ է ը թ ժ |
| 11–20 | ի լ խ ծ կ հ ձ ղ ճ մ |
| 21–30 | յ ն շ ո չ պ ջ ռ ս վ |
| 31–39 | տ ր ց ու (u) փ ք և օ ֆ |
What order to take the characters in
The writing course is split into 8 steps: one step is one lesson, a few characters at a time. Nobody takes the whole script at once out of mercy: 40 signs in an evening stay in memory for exactly that, an evening.
- 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.
- 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.
Frequently asked
How many characters do you need to learn to read in Armenian?
40 signs. The writing course covers them all, plus one more sign, ւ, that does not count as a letter. After that a word stops being a picture — even when its meaning is still unknown.
What to learn first: letters or words?
Letters. A word in an unfamiliar script cannot be read at all, and a “word — translation” card tells you no more than a picture does.
How long does it take to learn to read in Armenian?
One step a day — 8 days. That is about recognizing characters, not understanding: you will start reading aloud before you understand what you read.