ے — bari ye
«bari ye» is a vowel of the Urdu script, read as “e (long, final)”. A long open "e" like the ai of "air", but held. It lives only at the very end of a word — چائے reads chai. For example, in the word “چائے” — tea. The Urdu alphabet has 38 letters in total. The big ye without dots — an upside-down heart moored to the end of a word. It never begins a word and never stands in the middle. It appears, for example, in the word “کیا حال ہے؟” — how are you?
In short
| Character | ے |
| Name | bari ye |
| Sound | e (long, final) |
| What it is | a vowel |
In our course the character comes 5th of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ی and ء, appears in 452 words of this site.
How to type ے
- On a phone: add the Urdu keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+06D2 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 06D2.
- Unicode code point: U+06D2. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A long open "e" like the ai of "air", but held. It lives only at the very end of a word — چائے reads chai
Other written forms
The same character is written differently on a shop sign and in a book. Here are all the forms you may meet.
| Form | Character | Note |
|---|---|---|
| final | ـے | joins only from the right |
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.
- چائےchaitea
The character in the “ا آ و ی ے — the vowels and length” group
The script is an abjad: short vowels are not written in it at all. کتب is "k-t-b", and it reads kitab — the short i comes from memory. Only the long ones are written, with these signs, plus the seat a word starts on when it opens with any vowel. Vav and ye stay consonants ("v" and "y") whenever a vowel of their own stands next to them. The hamza is a glottal catch, a mark rather than a letter.
Words with this character
- کیا حال ہے؟kya hal hai?how are you?
- ٹھیک ہےthik haiokay
- پھر ملتے ہیںphir milte hainsee you
- میرا نام … ہےmera nam … haimy name is
- آپ کا نام کیا ہے؟ap ka nam kya hai?what is your name?
- مجھے خوشی ہوئیmujhe khushi huipleased to meet you
- آپ کہاں سے ہیں؟ap kahan se hain?where are you from?
- میں روس سے ہوںmain rus se hunI am from Russia
- مجھے سمجھ نہیں آئیmujhe samajh nahin aiI don’t understand
- آپ انگریزی بولتے ہیں؟ap angrezi bolte hain?do you speak English?
- معاف کیجیےmaaf kidzhiyeexcuse me
- چائےchaitea
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 «bari ye» it is “e (long, final)”, as in the word “چائے”), 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 Urdu character ے read?
As “e (long, final)” — it is a vowel of the Urdu script. A long open "e" like the ai of "air", but held. It lives only at the very end of a word — چائے reads chai. For example, in the word “چائے” — tea.
What is the letter ے called?
Bari ye. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Urdu script: it is called “bari ye” and reads as “e (long, final)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.