ط — toe
«toe» is a consonant of the Urdu script, read as “t (bookish)”. Reads as a plain t. For example, in the word “طوطا” — parrot. The Urdu alphabet has 38 letters in total. The ص oval broken open at the top, no dots at all. Do not confuse it with ف: that one carries a dot on top. طوطا "parrot". It appears, for example, in the word “قطار” — queue.
In short
| Character | ط |
| Name | toe |
| Sound | t (bookish) |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 29th of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ض and ظ, appears in 96 words of this site.
How to type ط
- 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+0637 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 0637.
- Unicode code point: U+0637. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
Reads as a plain t
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 | طـ | — |
| medial | ـطـ | — |
| final | ـط | — |
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.
- طوطاtotaparrot
The character in the “ص ض ط ظ — old spellings on living words” group
Four "heavy" consonants of the older alphabet. Their special thick pronunciation faded out of speech centuries ago. Today ص reads as plain s, ض as z, ط as t, ظ as z. Three signs share the one z sound. They live in bookish loanwords, but there is no skipping them: صبح "morning" opens every day.
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 «toe» it is “t (bookish)”, as in the word “طوطا”), 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 ط read?
As “t (bookish)” — it is a consonant of the Urdu script. Reads as a plain t. For example, in the word “طوطا” — parrot.
What is the letter ط called?
Toe. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Urdu script: it is called “toe” and reads as “t (bookish)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can ط be confused with?
The ص oval broken open at the top, no dots at all. Do not confuse it with ف: that one carries a dot on top. طوطا "parrot". 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.