پ — pe
«pe» is a consonant of the Urdu script, read as “p”. A plain p as in "stop". For example, in the word “پانی” — water. The Urdu alphabet has 38 letters in total. The ب skeleton with three dots underneath — the b boat plus dots. A sound this alphabet had to build a letter for. It appears, for example, in the word “پھر ملتے ہیں” — see you.
In short
| Character | پ |
| Name | pe |
| Sound | p |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 13th of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ب and ت, appears in 545 words of this site.
How to type پ
- 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+067E 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 067E.
- Unicode code point: U+067E. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A plain p as in "stop"
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 | پـ | — |
| medial | ـپـ | — |
| final | ـپ | — |
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.
- پانیpaniwater
The character in the “ب پ ت ث — one skeleton, dots count to three” group
The most legible family: one boat-shaped skeleton, and the difference is the number of dots. One underneath, two on top, three on top. Learn it first — here you can see how the whole writing system works. The fourth letter lives only in bookish loanwords.
Words with this character
- پھر ملتے ہیںphir milte hainsee you
- آپapyou (polite)
- آپ کا نام کیا ہے؟ap ka nam kya hai?what is your name?
- آپ لوگap logyou (all)
- آپ کہاں سے ہیں؟ap kahan se hain?where are you from?
- پاکستانPakistanPakistan
- آپ انگریزی بولتے ہیں؟ap angrezi bolte hain?do you speak English?
- پانیpaniwater
- پیناpinato drink
- پانچpanchfive
- روپیہrupiyarupee
- پھلphalfruit
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 «pe» it is “p”, as in the word “پانی”), 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 پ read?
As “p” — it is a consonant of the Urdu script. A plain p as in "stop". For example, in the word “پانی” — water.
What is the letter پ called?
Pe. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Urdu script: it is called “pe” and reads as “p”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.