How to read in Urdu

Right to left, joined, and no short vowels

Three differences from English, and all of them are visible in the first word. First: the line runs right to left — the beginning of the word stands at the right edge, the end at the left. Second: the letters join into one continuous line; a word looks like a single stroke. Third: short vowels are not written at all. The script is an abjad: letters carry the consonants and the long vowels, and memory restores the short ones. That is why the course always runs with a transcription — without it the first weeks are a pattern, not text.

The letters of this step are among the most frequent in the language. ا is the long "aa" and the seat under any first vowel; آ the same letter with a madda stroke. ب is b, پ is p, ت is t, م is m. In باب (baab, "section") a long "aa" sits between the two b’s: b-aa-b, reading from the right.

Letters that refuse to join on

Most letters clasp their neighbours on both sides, but seven — ا د ذ ر ز ژ و — take a join only from the right. Their Urdu-built relatives ڈ ڑ ے behave the same. In نام (naam, "name") the word falls apart into three separate signs. That is not a rarity but a marker: it gives these letters away in any text. The angle د therefore has no initial or medial form — only the letter itself.

The new letters of the step: د is d, و is w — and after a consonant the long "oo" as well. Then ر, a short r in one tap of the tongue. And two more: ل, l with a long tail, ن, a circle with a dot on top.

ج چ ح خ — one skeleton, four sounds

The family that shows how the whole alphabet works: one skeleton, and the difference is the dots. A dot inside — ج, the j of "jam". Three underneath — چ, the ch of "chair". No dot — ح, a breathy h: the throat consonant it came from has softened here into a plain breath. A dot on top — خ, a kh with a rough edge, deeper than usual. The two h sounds must not be confused: حال is "state", خال already "mole".

In چاند (chaand, "moon") no short "a" stands on the page: not one sign sits between ch and n. Yet a vowel sounds there — and that is every second word of the course. The consonant frame sits on the page; the vowels come out of memory.

س ش — the three teeth, and ye with two jobs

س is the most conspicuous letter of the script: three teeth in a row. With no dot it is s; with three dots on top — ش, sh. A pair on one skeleton, like the corners of step two.

ی is the consonant y — and after a consonant also the long "ee". In سلام (salaam, "hello") no vowel is written at all: s-aa-l-aa-m is assembled by memory. And in چائے (chai, "tea") the word closes with ے — the big dotless ye. It holds the long "e" of the very end of a word. The three teeth and the dots on the tails are how you tell s and sh apart from across the page.

ٹ ڈ ڑ ں ھ — letters the neighbors do not have

Urdu took a borrowed skeleton and built its own sounds on it. ٹ is the retroflex t: the tongue curls back and taps the roof of the mouth. The sound comes out thicker than the plain dental one. ڈ is the same with d, ڑ with r — and ڑ lives only inside a word. ں is the nasal: the vowel before it escapes through the nose, lips and tongue never close.

And ھ — do-chashmi he, the "two-eyed" one: it reads nothing itself, but turns its neighbour into a puff of air. In بھی (bhi, "too") the pair بھ sounds bh — every bh, th, dh, kh, gh of the language is written this way. This family is the first thing that gives an Urdu text away on sight. The Arabs and the Persians have none of it.

ص ض ط ظ — borrowed letters, and the depth of ع غ ق

Four "heavy" consonants of another alphabet, on which the language built its whole bookish vocabulary. Their special thick pronunciation faded long ago: today ص reads s, ض reads z, ط reads t, ظ reads z. Telling them apart by ear is unnecessary; recognizing them on sight is mandatory — صبح, "morning", stands in every day of the week.

Beside them, the throat. ع is ayn: in living speech it has almost gone mute. At the start of a word it still sounds as a broken-off vowel. غ is ghayn, the other way round: a deep gargled g straight from the bottom of the throat. And ق is a deep sound between k and g; the transcription writes it as g, like the ghayn. In صبح (subah, "morning") the first letter is bookish, and the eye recognizes it before the ear does.

The last letters: ک گ ف ہ and the bookish ث ذ ز ژ

The rest of the alphabet. ک is k, the ordinary one — the deep sound from the bottom of the throat belongs to ق of the previous step. گ is g, a native letter on the ک skeleton: without it you could not say gol ("flower") or gulaab ("rose water"). ف is f, ہ a light breath — the script’s third h; the copula ہے "is" is written with it.

And four bookish letters on familiar skeletons. ث reads s, ذ reads z, ز is plain z, ژ is zh — the z skeleton with three dots. Three signs share the one living z sound, and the language tells them apart only by eye. The difference lives in writing, in a dictionary, in a name. In کتب (kitaab, "book") all three signs are already learned — the first long word that reads itself.

What order to take the characters in

The writing course is split into 7 steps: one step is one lesson, a few characters at a time. Nobody takes the whole script at once out of mercy: 40 signs in an evening stay in memory for exactly that, an evening.

• Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many times
  Donovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
• 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 times
  Adesope, 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.

Next

• Urdu alphabetA reference of all the characters
• TransliterationThe table, both ways
• PronunciationWhat you hear and what is hard
• How to break down an unfamiliar scripta note