ھ — do-chashmi he
«do-chashmi he» is a consonant of the Urdu script, read as “aspiration (h)”. Reads nothing by itself. Standing as a pair in front of a letter, it adds a puff of breath. So ب plus ھ sounds bh, as in the first syllable of "clubhouse". For example, in the word “بھی” — also. The Urdu alphabet has 38 letters in total. Two little tongues in a row — hence the name, "two-eyed". Every bh, th, dh, kh, gh of the language is written through it. It appears, for example, in the word “ٹھیک ہے” — okay.
In short
| Character | ھ |
| Name | do-chashmi he |
| Sound | aspiration (h) |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 11th of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ں and ب, appears in 594 words of this site.
How to type ھ
- 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+06BE 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 06BE.
- Unicode code point: U+06BE. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
Reads nothing by itself. Standing as a pair in front of a letter, it adds a puff of breath. So ب plus ھ sounds bh, as in the first syllable of "clubhouse"
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 |
|---|---|---|
| initial | ھـ | — |
| medial | ـھـ | — |
| final | ـھ | — |
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.
- بھیbhialso
The character in the “ٹ ڈ ڑ ں ھ — letters the neighbors do not have” group
Urdu took a borrowed skeleton and built its own sounds on it. Three retroflexes — the tongue curls back and taps the roof of the mouth. The nasal sign sends the vowel up into the nose. And do-chashmi he ھ reads nothing by itself: it turns the letter before it into a puff of air. This family is the first thing that gives an Urdu text away on sight.
Words with this character
- ٹھیک ہےthik haiokay
- میں ٹھیک ہوںmain thik hunI am fine
- پھر ملتے ہیںphir milte hainsee you
- بھیbhitoo
- مجھے خوشی ہوئیmujhe khushi huipleased to meet you
- مجھے سمجھ نہیں آئیmujhe samajh nahin aiI don’t understand
- تھوڑاthoraa little
- دودھdudhmilk
- مجھے … دیجیےmujhe … didzhiyegive me
- کھاناkhanafood
- کے ساتھke sathwith
- چھchhesix
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 «do-chashmi he» it is “aspiration (h)”, as in the word “بھی”), 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 ھ read?
As “aspiration (h)” — it is a consonant of the Urdu script. Reads nothing by itself. Standing as a pair in front of a letter, it adds a puff of breath. So ب plus ھ sounds bh, as in the first syllable of "clubhouse". For example, in the word “بھی” — also.
What is the letter ھ called?
Do-chashmi he. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Urdu script: it is called “do-chashmi he” and reads as “aspiration (h)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.