LingoflyUzbek
Uzbek — a Turkic language of the Karluk group — a relative of Kazakh and Turkish that grew on its own road, about 35 million native speakers (estimate, Ethnologue). Script: a Latin alphabet of 29 units: 24 letters without c and w plus the digraphs oʻ, gʻ, sh, ch, ng — and the mark ʼ, which is not counted as a letter.
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Demo language: Uzbek
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rahmat
thank you
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rahmat
- goodbye
- hello
- thank you
- please (for requests)
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rahmat
thank you
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Katta ___!
Thank you so much!
- Salom
- rahmat
- xayr
- iltimos
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rahmat
thank you
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rahmat
thank you
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Answers stay on this page. Statistics include the demo stage, overall result, interface language and saved counter consent choice, without answer text or a profile.
Where to start
A young course: the words, the lessons and the recordings are all here, but a native speaker has not read it end to end yet. Spot a rough edge? Tell us and we will fix it.
- →Uzbek alphabetAll letters and how they are read
- →Uzbek wordsBy topic and alphabetically
- →PhrasebookPhrases ready to use
- →GrammarRules without jargon
- →Reading textsShort texts with translation
- →How to readThe writing course from zero
- →PronunciationWhat you hear and what is hard
- →From scratchWhere to start, and in what order
- →How long to studyAn honest estimate, with caveats
First words
Every conversation starts with them — and so does the first impression: one greeting in the local language and you stop being a stranger within a second.
- Salomhellostress on the second syllable
- Assalomu alaykumhello (formal)Literally "peace upon you". Said to elders, in town and on a host's doorstep; the answer is "Va alaykum assalom" — "and peace upon you".
- xayrgoodbyethe h is a light breath only
- Yaxshimisiz?how are you?y is the y of yes, not w
- Hammasi yaxshi.I am doing well"hammasi" — everything, "yaxshi" — good. The full answer to "how are you": hammasi yaxshi, rahmat.
- Arzimaydi.don't mention itthe s between vowels sounds like z
About the language
| Native name | oʻzbekcha |
| Official in | Uzbekistan |
| Also spoken in | Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Kazakhstan |
| How many speakers | about 35 million native speakers (estimate, Ethnologue) |
| Family | a Turkic language of the Karluk group — a relative of Kazakh and Turkish that grew on its own road |
| Script | a Latin alphabet of 29 units: 24 letters without c and w plus the digraphs oʻ, gʻ, sh, ch, ng — and the mark ʼ, which is not counted as a letter |
| Writing direction | left to right |
Hard: words grow suffixes in long chains, the verb goes to the end, and the ending follows the last vowel of the word.
Easy: spelled exactly the way it sounds, no gender, and plenty of recognizable words: chai, bazaar, osh (pilaf), non (flatbread).
What people most often take it up for: work and business with Uzbekistan, travel and relocation, family and roots, Samarkand and Bukhara.
Curiosities in Uzbek
In one 20th century Uzbek changed its script twice: from Arabic to Latin in 1929 and from Latin to Cyrillic in 1940. In 1993 a return to Latin was declared, and by 1995 the alphabet had grown into its present form — while the words themselves never changed once.
How lessons work
A lesson is up to half an hour a day, split into three to five short sessions. A word comes back not on the course's schedule but at the moment you are about to forget it: the interval is computed by an algorithm from your own answers.
- The longer you want to keep a word, the longer the gap before reviewing it can be. To hold it for a week, review it after a day or two; to hold it for a year, after about three or four weeks.checked many timesCepeda et al., 2008, Psychological Science 19(11) · Over 1,350 participants, tested after delays of up to a year. The best gap is about 20–40% of the target interval when you need to remember for a week, and 5–10% when for a year.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- A material reward promised for doing a task lowers the wish to take it up of your own accord once the reward is gone. Praise for what was done, on the contrary, keeps that wish alive.checked many timesDeci, Koestner & Ryan, 1999, Psychological Bulletin 125(6) · 128 experiments. A material reward promised in advance and the time later spent on the task by free choice: d = −0.44 for finishing, −0.40 for taking part, −0.28 for performance; a reward unrelated to the task, −0.14, not significant. Praise: +0.33.
Frequently asked
Where to start learning Uzbek?
With the sounds and the first hundred words: you know the script, but it has its own reading rules.
How many people speak Uzbek?
About 35 million native speakers — an estimate; source: Ethnologue. Nobody runs an exact census of languages, and sources disagree by noticeable amounts.
Is Uzbek hard?
Words grow suffixes in long chains, the verb goes to the end, and the ending follows the last vowel of the word. At the same time, spelled exactly the way it sounds, no gender, and plenty of recognizable words: chai, bazaar, osh (pilaf), non (flatbread).
Where is Uzbek spoken?
An official language in: Uzbekistan. Noticeable communities: Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Kazakhstan.