LingoflyԿ կ — gen
«gen» is a consonant of the Western Armenian script, the aybuben, read as “g”. Read "g" — the former voiceless turned voiced. The Western Armenian alphabet has 38 letters in total. Կայ (gay) is "gay", "there is". The present-tense particle կը (gə) reads "gə": կը (gə) խօսիմ (khosim) — "gə khosim". It appears, for example, in the word “Բարի երեկոյ” (pari yerego) — good evening.
In short
| Character | Կ կ |
| Name | gen |
| Sound | g |
| 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
Read "g" — the former voiceless turned voiced
The character in the “triplets: where the western reading turns the letters over” group
Five triplets, fifteen letters — and in each triplet the norms read them differently. The former voiced բ, դ, գ, ձ, ջ now sound like p, t, k, ts, ch with a puff of air. The former voiceless պ, տ, կ, ծ, ճ turned voiced: b, d, g, dz, j. The aspirated փ, թ, ք, ց, չ kept their puff of air. If you read the eastern norm, these ten letters have to be turned over.
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 — 38 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 Western Armenian character կ read?
As “g” — it is a consonant of the Western Armenian script, the aybuben. Read "g" — the former voiceless turned voiced.
What is the letter կ called?
Gen. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Western Armenian script: it is called “gen” and reads as “g”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.