ح — he (hooded)
«he (hooded)» is a consonant of the Urdu script, read as “h (breathy)”. A breathy h, like the h of "hand" but made deeper, in the throat — as if fogging a pane of glass. In fast speech it settles into a plain h. For example, in the word “حال” — state. The Urdu alphabet has 38 letters in total. The skeleton without a single dot. The pair of ج and خ: the same shape, the dots decide. It appears, for example, in the word “صبح بخیر” — good morning.
In short
| Character | ح |
| Name | he (hooded) |
| Sound | h (breathy) |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 18th of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are چ and خ, appears in 135 words of this site.
How to type ح
- 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+062D 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 062D.
- Unicode code point: U+062D. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A breathy h, like the h of "hand" but made deeper, in the throat — as if fogging a pane of glass. In fast speech it settles into a plain h
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 | حـ | — |
| medial | ـحـ | — |
| final | ـح | — |
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.
- حالhalstate
The character in the “ج چ ح خ — j, ch and two h sounds” group
One skeleton, four letters, told apart by dots and their place. A dot inside makes "j". Three underneath make "ch". No dot leaves a breathy h from deep in the throat. A dot on top gives kh, with a rough edge. The two h sounds must not be confused: حال is "state", and خال is already "mole" — a different word.
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 «he (hooded)» it is “h (breathy)”, as in the word “حال”), 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 ح read?
As “h (breathy)” — it is a consonant of the Urdu script. A breathy h, like the h of "hand" but made deeper, in the throat — as if fogging a pane of glass. In fast speech it settles into a plain h. For example, in the word “حال” — state.
What is the letter ح called?
He (hooded). A character's name and its sound are different things in the Urdu script: it is called “he (hooded)” and reads as “h (breathy)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can ح be confused with?
The skeleton without a single dot. The pair of ج and خ: the same shape, the dots decide. 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.