LingoflyР р — er
«er» is a consonant of the Kazakh script, read as “a rolled r”. The tongue tip flutters behind the upper teeth. No native word begins with it. For example, in the word “рахмет” (rakhmet) — thank you. The Kazakh alphabet has 42 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. Looks like a Latin P, but reads r. It appears, for example, in the word “Рақмет” (Raqmet) — thank you.
In short
| Character | Р р |
| Name | er |
| Sound | a rolled r |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 23rd of 42, its neighbours in the course are п and с, appears in roughly every fifth word on this site.
How to type Р р
- On a phone: add the Kazakh keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+0440 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 0440.
- Unicode code points: р — U+0440, Р — U+0420. With them, the characters can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
The tongue tip flutters behind the upper teeth. No native word begins with it
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.
- рахмет (rakhmet)thank you
The character in the “twenty-two common letters” group
Five of them read the way they look: а к м о т. Five only look Latin: В is v, Н is n, Р is r, С is s, Х is kh. The other twelve are new shapes: eleven consonants and one vowel, ы.
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 (for «er» it is “a rolled r”, as in the word “рахмет” (rakhmet)), 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 — 42 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 Kazakh character р read?
As “a rolled r” — it is a consonant of the Kazakh script. The tongue tip flutters behind the upper teeth. No native word begins with it. For example, in the word “рахмет” (rakhmet) — thank you.
What is the letter р called?
Er. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Kazakh script: it is called “er” and reads as “a rolled r”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can р be confused with?
Looks like a Latin P, but reads r. 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.