و — vav
«vav» is a consonant of the Urdu script, read as “w / uu”. The w of "water", lips rounded without a touch. After a consonant the same letter serves as the long vowel "oo" — وقت reads waqt. For example, in the word “وقت” — time. The Urdu alphabet has 38 letters in total. A lone loop that joins only from the right. Three jobs on one shape: w, oo, and the tail of the diphthong au. It appears, for example, in the word “میں ٹھیک ہوں” — I am fine.
In short
| Character | و |
| Name | vav |
| Sound | w / uu |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 3rd of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are آ and ی, appears in roughly every fifth word on this site.
How to type و
- 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+0648 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 0648.
- Unicode code point: U+0648. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
The w of "water", lips rounded without a touch. After a consonant the same letter serves as the long vowel "oo" — وقت reads waqt
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 | ـو | 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.
- وقتwaqttime
The character in the “ا آ و ی ے — the vowels and length” group
The script is an abjad: short vowels are not written in it at all. کتب is "k-t-b", and it reads kitab — the short i comes from memory. Only the long ones are written, with these signs, plus the seat a word starts on when it opens with any vowel. Vav and ye stay consonants ("v" and "y") whenever a vowel of their own stands next to them. The hamza is a glottal catch, a mark rather than a letter.
Words with this character
- میں ٹھیک ہوںmain thik hunI am fine
- کوئی بات نہیںkoy bat nahinyou are welcome
- مجھے خوشی ہوئیmujhe khushi huipleased to meet you
- وہwohe
- آپ لوگap logyou (all)
- وہ لوگwo logthey
- میں روس سے ہوںmain rus se hunI am from Russia
- لاہورLahorLahore
- دوبارہdobaraagain
- آپ انگریزی بولتے ہیں؟ap angrezi bolte hain?do you speak English?
- تھوڑاthoraa little
- دودھdudhmilk
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 «vav» it is “w / uu”, as in the word “وقت”), 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 و read?
As “w / uu” — it is a consonant of the Urdu script. The w of "water", lips rounded without a touch. After a consonant the same letter serves as the long vowel "oo" — وقت reads waqt. For example, in the word “وقت” — time.
What is the letter و called?
Vav. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Urdu script: it is called “vav” and reads as “w / uu”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.