ر — re
«re» is a consonant of the Urdu script, read as “r”. A quick single tap of the tongue — the tt of American "better", never the English r of "red"; it always stays crisp. For example, in the word “رنگ” — color. The Urdu alphabet has 38 letters in total. A stick with a tail bending down, joins only from the right. رنگ "color" opens with it. It appears, for example, in the word “صبح بخیر” — good morning.
In short
| Character | ر |
| Name | re |
| Sound | r |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 22nd of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ذ and ز, appears in roughly every other word on this site.
How to type ر
- 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+0631 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 0631.
- Unicode code point: U+0631. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A quick single tap of the tongue — the tt of American "better", never the English r of "red"; it always stays crisp
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 | ـر | 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.
- رنگrangcolor
The character in the “د ذ ر ز ژ — tails with no beginning” group
Letters that join only from the right and so never change shape inside a word. Each pair shares one skeleton: an angle, or a stick with a tail. The second letter of the pair carries the dot. The retroflexes ڈ and ڑ live in the family above — Urdu built those itself.
Words with this character
- صبح بخیرsub bekhairgood morning
- شکریہshukriyathank you
- مہربانیmeharbaniplease
- خرابkharabbad
- بہترینbehtarinexcellent
- پھر ملتے ہیںphir milte hainsee you
- میرا نام … ہےmera nam … haimy name is
- میں روس سے ہوںmain rus se hunI am from Russia
- لاہورLahorLahore
- دوبارہdobaraagain
- آپ انگریزی بولتے ہیں؟ap angrezi bolte hain?do you speak English?
- شام بخیرsham bekhairgood evening
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 «re» it is “r”, as in the word “رنگ”), 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 ر read?
As “r” — it is a consonant of the Urdu script. A quick single tap of the tongue — the tt of American "better", never the English r of "red"; it always stays crisp. For example, in the word “رنگ” — color.
What is the letter ر called?
Re. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Urdu script: it is called “re” and reads as “r”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.