ل — lam
«lam» is a consonant of the Urdu script, read as “l”. A light l, closer to the l of "leaf" than to the dark l of "full". The tongue sits forward and the sound stays thin. For example, in the word “لال” — red. The Urdu alphabet has 38 letters in total. A hook with a long tail. لال "red" — the color of pomegranates and bridal wear. It appears, for example, in the word “سلام” — hello.
In short
| Character | ل |
| Name | lam |
| Sound | l |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 37th of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are گ and م, appears in roughly every fifth word on this site.
How to type ل
- 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+0644 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 0644.
- Unicode code point: U+0644. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A light l, closer to the l of "leaf" than to the dark l of "full". The tongue sits forward and the sound stays thin
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 | لـ | — |
| medial | ـلـ | — |
| final | ـل | — |
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.
- لالlalred
The character in the “ف ک گ ل م ن ہ — the light consonants” group
Consonants with skeletons of their own that nothing can be confused with. ک and گ differ from ق in depth: ک is an ordinary k, and گ an ordinary g. The ق sounds from the bottom of the throat. And the lightest h of the script: ہ is a plain breath of air — the copula ہے "is" is written with it.
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 «lam» it is “l”, as in the word “لال”), 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 ل read?
As “l” — it is a consonant of the Urdu script. A light l, closer to the l of "leaf" than to the dark l of "full". The tongue sits forward and the sound stays thin. For example, in the word “لال” — red.
What is the letter ل called?
Lam. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Urdu script: it is called “lam” and reads as “l”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.