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Learn To Read Urdu (Jose Francisco) PDF
Learn To Read Urdu (Jose Francisco) PDF
Read Urdu
Francisco Jose
Learn to Read Urdu
Urdu is a very popular language of the subcontinent , second only in the number of speakers to Hindi. It is the
national language of Pakistan and an offical language of UP in India . It is the language of poetry and of
literature .
Lesson 1
Urdu is written in the opposite direction to English ie from right to left.
It is an easy language to write fast in , because it has a built in shorthand ! It is very important to read each line
slowly and study each part of a figure closely the first time , and then re-read it carefully again to make the
whole learning experience easy.
This is the most important lesson so once again do it very slowly and carefully and the rest of the 20 or so
lessons will then seem very easy .
Each sound is represented by a letter . For example lets look at the letter K and N in in the next figure.
Each letter is written in a slightly different form depending on whether it comes in the beginning , middle or
end of a word or whether it occurs on its own ie in a detached form .
If for example you look at the figure below, K on its own is on your extreme right marked detached . If it
occurs in the beginning of a word as in the word Kill it is written as in the next one along -ie its inital form
marked 2. If it occurs in the middle of a word eg luKy it is written in the medial form 3 and if it occurs at the
end of the word as in ducK it is like the 4th final form to your extreme left.
The above figure has the detached , initial . medial and final forms of K and N. You may have noted that the
detached and final form form are usually very similar.
Note again that the detached form is on your extreme right then the initial , medial and final.
Supposing we wanted to make say a meaningless two letter word with a starting ( initial) letter K and ending
with N .
We would take the intial form of K marked 2 in the figure above and the final form of N marked 4 and join
them together . Remember to read it R to L.
Easy isnt it ? .
Vowel marks
Lets add some accent and vowel marks in between the letter K and N . Reading from the right of the screen the
second word is k'n with the k pronounced a little longer since the accent mark (zabar) is over the k . The next
word kn' has a longer n since the accent mark is over the n . The shapes of the vowels aa, i, ee, u , oo , o , au ,ae
and aae are obvious from the figure and are explained in more detail after the figure .
Lets take our meaningless word kn and add vowel marks to it . The left word in the next figure reads kAAn
( ear). The AA is a vertical straight line. A vowel is not joined to the letter following it so the letter n in kaan is
written in its detached form . Note also the slight change in the shape of K .
To make kin (as in kith and kin) we put a small slanting mark called ZER below the letter K. .
This vowel mark is often left out in newspapers so when you see kn
To write the word kEEn we add two dots to the slanting zer mark
To make the sound u as in kUmar a PESH mark is put over the letter as in this word kUn
To make the long OO as cOOl another fat worm like mark is put after the letter as well as the pesh above it as
For the mark O as in cOne the worm like mark is on its own without the pesh
To make the AU sound as in AUtumn the zabar mark is put above the O . The next figure reads as kAUn
(who?)
For the AE sound as in cAEn (cane) we write just two dots below the letter.
To make the AAE sound we add a slanting zabar above the AE mark.
Note the difference between kEEn and kAEn(cane)
The vowel mark AA as we noted above is written as a straight vertical line. The next word to it on your left is
kin . The vowel mark little i is a small slant line called in urdu ZER is placed BELOW the letter , in this case K.
The next word on the second line is KEEN . Two dots are added to the little i - ZER- mark to make a big EE
mark below the letter.
Then little u - KUN as in the word crook - the u mark -called PESH- is always above the letter ; next is big U
-KOON as in sOOn - note you get a big fat worm like figure added to the little u-pesh- mark , but this worm is
is O as in cone (icecream cone)- the worm on its own makes an O sound ; but when a zabar is added above the
letter it makes an Au -KAUN (who in Urdu ) as in AUtumn . Note the difference between the words KOON
and KAUN in the bigger figure above. . kOOn has a pesh on top of the worm while kAUn has a zabar on top of
the worm.
Next below is ae as in cane (sugar) with two dots below. See if you can spot the difference between the word
Cane below and the word KEEN above. Thats right ! , the only difference between an AE vowel mark and an
EE one is that EE has an extra zabar in addition to the two dots.This is important to remember.
Last of all in this figure
look again at CANE with the two dots marking the AE sound and the next figure to it CAN . We get the AAE
sound in cAAEnada (Canada) by just adding a zabar at the top of the letter
Just go over the vowel marks again. Spend a lot of time sudying the figure below and get up and get it
imprinted on your mind. It is extremely improtant to get the vowel marks right . After finishing these
introductory lessons red some children's study books. The reason is that newspapers tend to leave out the small
vowel marks of little i and little u and tend to put one word on top of another and you will get very confused
unless you are confident of your vowels.
The following are the vowel marks which modify the letters.
The madd , hamza and tashdid signs are special characters we will look at in the next lesson
Sometimes the letter N when it is the final letter is written without the dot in the middle and is not sounded
except from the back of the throat as example in the word maa'n for mother.We shall look at this later.
We will end the first lesson here . It is very important to go over this lesson again and again to make sure you
have the vowels right. As a test see if you get them all in the next figure.
Here are the answers
One important point to note is that the zabar mark and i mark called a zer are similar but the zabar is on top of a
letter while zer which signifies i is below.
Lesson 2
Vowel at the beginning of a sentence .
If a word begins with a vowel eg arm , apple , easter etc. an aliph sign is always put before the vowel mark.
If the vowel is not at the start of a word we dont use the vertical aliph and just use the vowel marks as below.
After Aliph the next letters in the alphabet are B , P , Te (soft as in tota-parrot) , T , and S.-written from your R
to Left. These letters are pronounced as Be (bay) , Pe , Te , Te and Se.
The S above can be confused with SH which we will see later , so look at it closely.
Its quite easy to guess the four forms of each letter depending on whether it is detached ( to your right ) . comes
at the beginning ( second right on your screen) , middle - 3rd from the Right or final (leftmost )
Looking at the above figure and keeping the sign of the aa vowel ( just a vertical line ) , and keeping in mind
where the letter comes in the word ,can you read your first sentence in Urdu ? It has a final form of the i which
you have not met before ( in the word KI below). Also note the little omega sign -called TASHDID-at the top
of B in ABBA. It is a doubler ie it means you have to say B twice , the first B is half pronounced . Read R to L.
Do you know what the above - Aap ke Abba ki Kitab - means ? It says this book belongs to your father . Abba
is urdu for father . Aap means you and kitab is book. Note also that the two dots for the soft te in Kitab are
placed well above the line.
The next figure below has three urdu words and one English word. Can you read them ? Answers are in the
next figure after the one below.
Lesson 3
Lets look at the vowels and the words learnt so far and introduce a new letter M
Can you by looking at the figure above identify the following words in the next figure ? They consist of Urdu
words in the first line and English in the next one.
The answers are Pakistan ( this is a different form of S - a new letter will be introduced in the figures sometimes
before without prewarning and you have to make a best guess what it might sound like - its a good practice to
get into as often some of vowel marks are not written and one has to occasionally guess in reading normal Urdu
) . The words are Mama and Neem on the first line. The second line has mint , no , potato and the final line has
name and then mine. Note the hamza - a little one put over a vowel when one vowel follows another as here in
the word MINE the vowel AA is followed by EE.
Lesson 4
Lets look at another three vowels in the figure below from R to L which complete the vowels used in Urdu
They are another form of A which we shall from now mark as little a to distinguish from Aliph.
Long EE also used as Y as we shall see.
Long Ae
Then is the letter H and finally L.
a is pronounce as AEN ( as in mAn) . The next is the letter Y . Because it has two dots at the bottom it can
easily be confused with the vowel mark ae .Third is the long Ae . Next on the left are the two useful consonants
H and L .
Lets make some words using the above . Have a go at reading them.
The next figure has all Urdu words since these aspirated consonants do not occur in English. Line 1 has the
common form of H-you have seen before- in the middle of each of the two words -can you read the words ?
Line 2 has the special form of H marked Special H and the words are explained in the figure after the one
below.
Here are the answers.
Note some important points. In the word Naheen you might easily miss the zer and read the two dots as ae-
sometimes you have to hunt for the vowel marks!
Note the hamza in BYE and BHAEE to signify that one vowel follows another immediately.
Note also the word KHAEL - it is easy to misread the two dots as Y instead of AE.
Note also that the final L has a longer vertical stem to distinguish it from the final undotted nasal N.
Lesson 6
Next lets look at the second line of the Urdu alphabet. These letters are J , Ch , H and Kh -read as Jeem , Cheem
, Hae and Khae.
See if you can read the follwing words . It is not important that you get them right the first time but you should
be able to reread them easily. Masculine words end with Aa eg
Dada ( grandfather) while feminine words end with i - Dadi (grandmother). Another example is
Chacha (uncle) and Chachi ( Aunt). In the figure below the first line has English words. The second and third
one have one of the most beautiful buildings in the world and Urdu words.
Here are the answers
Revise your vowel marks to see if you agree with the answers above. Note the sound doubler in Bachcha - on
Line 3.
The special H can be used for J and Ch to give the deeper JH and CHH sounds as for example in the Udu words
Jhanda -flag and Chhatri - Umbrella. In the figure below see if you can read the words in Urdu on the second
line and the sentence on the third line.
Here is the answer.
.
Note that the N in the word mother ( Maa'n)is a nasal N and is not pronounced except from the back of the
throat- the tongue stays down flat. That is why it is marked with an apostrophe. The N in the word Maan is
pronounced with the tongue on the teeth and has the dot in it.
It is better to start reading childrens books and build up a vocabulary before reading Urdu newspapers. The
reason is that often there are no spaces between the words in the newspapers. It is not necessary for experienced
readers as they can tell instantly from the final form of a letter where the word ends but the lack of space before
the next word can be very confusing for beginners. Another reason is that sometimes the space below a letter
gets crowded and often a vowel mark will be left out and that can make it very difficult to read the words as
well.
Remember to reread all the previous lessons before moving on to the new one. It should take no more than
fifteen minutes each time and you will find the learning experience a lot smoother .
Lesson 7
Most lessons are corrected and then reposted. So even if you have read them once it is a good idea to reread
them anew each week.
Before going on to the next line of the Urdu alphabet lets just recap all the letters learned so far . The inital ,
medial and final forms of a typical example of each line is oultined. See if you can spot a new letter that you
have not met so far.
and
Here are the answers
Lesson 8
The next line of the alphabet has the letters soft d ( THE ) , D and Z. called dhal , dal and zal
The figure below shows the inital , medial and final forms of THE , D , Z
.
What are the following English words?.
The Vowel mark O is also used as the letter V or W as in the word DWA below . Note that the mark over the A
to signify a long AA is ometimes ommited.See if you can spot the word DWA and read the other Urdu words.
two more Zs .
As you will see from above Urdu has borrowed many letters from Persian and Arabic and so there are multiple
letters for the same sounds such as
Z , H , S , KH etc.
Can you read the following English sentences ?
Lesson 9
This lesson has just Urdu words as the letters have no equivalent English sounds.
The one to your most right is the letter THE as in the word That. Then the letter D same as in English Drum .
Next is a tricky one DE - put the tongue on the palate as if to say D , then roll it back further and unroll it
rapidly without touching the palate. The special H makes an aspirated sound as in the words outlined below .
See if you can read them
Here are the answers.
Note that 2.DHOOD and 1. DHOD are pronounced the same although technicaly the later is not correct. This is
a problem for beginners as vowel marks like the pesh mark in 2 are often left out.
Lesson 10
The next set of letters are the S's . The figure below has the letters S , Sh , S again and Z pronounced as Seen ,
Sheen , Svad and Zvad.
In the above note that the first two are the most commonly used letter forms for S and Sh in Urdu. Svad and
Zvad the bottom two are borrowed from the Persian .Read the following words.The last line has Urdu words.
Ignore the problems of scale . They will be corrected at a later date. They may not be written as in an Urdu
dictionary because the pesh mark often (eg in the word for soap) gets left out. Also usually left out is the zabar
or accent mark ( except in the word must below) since it is assumed that all English speakers know where to put
the accent. Often the accent zabar mark is left out anyway.
The t' sound is produced by protruding the tip of the tongue just beyond the upper teeth and letting the front
third touch the bottom of the top teeth.The bottom teeth are also very close to the top teeth. Z is the same as
other Zs.
Related to the above sounds are TH as in Thanks or in the word marked A below (thin)-note the two dots over
the letter , and another mark is added to TH to convert it to TTH ( tongue touches the top of the mouth in
between the positions for T and D) as in the word ttheek (correct) , the dots are lost.
Lets look at two more letters. The first is another form of A called Aaen and the second with the dot on top is
another form of G called Gaaen.
The first Aaen is pronounced as an ugh followed by aa for eg the word to forgive maaf is really pronounce as
m-ugh-aa-f
Lesson 12
The next line of the Urdu alphabet contains the letters F pronounced as Fe and Q sounded as Quaf . The four
Note that in the word for Aq -stubborn - the letter A being a vowel does not join the Q. If it did it would be read
as L which has the same form as A
Lesson 13
In the figure below we have the letters K , G ,and L . As we have already met them before only the way they are
written is outlined below. Remember to start at the tail end of the arrow and follow the direction.
The next letters are M and N . Note that the nasal N , marked n' as in the urdu word for mother -maan' loses the
dot in the middle.
See if you can read the two English and one Urdu sentences below .
Answers are
Technically the O should be distinguished from the V by the fact that O should have a vowel mark over it as in
the word LAaO . However this rule is not always followed.
Lesson 14
Now we come to the final letters in the Urdu alphabet .
H we have met before. Remember the special form which modifies the letters B, P , T'-soft t , T , J , CH , THE
and D as in the examples below. In each case the letter being modified is written above the word. The special H
makes B into a deeper BH , P into PH as in pharmacy etc.
Read the Urdu sentence below . It shows how H can be used in the intial , medial and final forms.
Answer
Here is how the final letters big E - EE and big A - Ae can be used
Answer
Lesson 15
These lessons contains a couple of hundreds of Urdu vocabulary. It is most important to recognise the final
form of letters as otherwise it can be extremely difficult to know where a word ends and another begins , so
revise lesson 14 before starting this one.
The first column reading as in English has the English word followed by its Urdu translation.
Have a guess at the answers and then check your answer after the figure.
The first few figures are done for you.
Many of the accent marks are left out as they tend to clutter up the figure and you know where to lay the accent
in English words anyway . Some words do have them left in as examples.
If you see a zabar- a short slanting line- on its own at the top or also what looks like an arrow head pointing up ,
these are accent marks. This will become clearer when you read the figures.
Note that the zer -little i-slanting line mark below the letter which makes the two dots of an ae vowel into a big
EE- may be some distance from the two dots.
The next figure has the English words -for this lesson we will read as in English your left to your right -
Crocodile , Donkey , Cow on the first line and Fox , Seal and Giraffe on the second. Notice that the vowels are
written in small case.
In the figure below make sure you know the vowels correctly. the words are elephant , lion , bear , rhinosaurus ,
mongoose and alligator . That is an accent mark over the M in mongoose.
Now follow cat , rabbit , pig , goat , fish ,mouse, camel and tortoise.
Notice in mouse the hamza sign tells you that one vowel o- follows another a . Without the hamza the o would
be read as a v. Now see if you can guess the words in the figure below
The answers are shoes -jutte , hat-topi, boots-boot, socks-juraben, slipper-chappal, gloves-dastane ,
handkerchief-romal, belt-peti ,socks-juaraben ,gloves -dastane. Continue with the figure below . It has the
words for gorilla, squireel, baboon, stag,dear ,tiger and snake.
See if you can read the ones coming next
The next figure contains some common urdu words. Notice that some short vowel marks are left out. These are
indicated in brackets in the answers. The shlrt u , short i and the i mark modifying the ae into an big ee vowel
often suffer this fate.
Your answers should read - donkey -gaddha, sheep-bhed, fox-loomdi, cow-gaye, crocodile-magarmuchh ,
monkey -bandar, wolf-bhedia ,frog-maaendak, and seal on the last line. Ghaenda is rhino , hathi is elephant ,
richh is bear and cheetah usually means leopard as there are no cheetahs in the area.The arrow acent mark has
been left in the word frog.
Lets look at some parts of the body
Lesson 17
Lets read the following real life ad
It reads
Agar aap mulk jane se ek hafta pehle
If you country going to one week before
saman book carvayen to aap ka saman
luggae book do then your luggage
aap ke phunchane se phele...
your arrival before..
It is promising to deliver your luggage to the country of arrival before you if you book it a week in advance.
Read the next ad
Each line reads
Aap ki khidmat men pesh intercargo
Hum Pakistan jane walon ke liye Pakistan mein custom clearance
bhi karvaten haen. Aap duniya men kahin bi jana chaen to hum
to hum se aap kisi bi airlines ke ticket kharid sakte hain
har kism ki ghadiya aur truck bi bej sakte hein.
The above says it can clear your cargo for customs and sell you any airline ticket and even send your car or
truck.Note vocabulary duniya=world, khidmat=service, kharid=buy, ghadiya=car
Lets resume the vocabulary
Lesson 18
Continuing with the vocabulary
Months - september , mai (may), january , october , june , february , november , july , march , december ,
aguust , april (aepril )
anklet-janjher , necklace -haar, ear ring-baliyan', bangles-chriyan, broch -broch , ring - anghuti (finger), chain-
zanzir, watch-ghadi, nosering -nath, hair pin-pin
Lesson 20
Urdu and Hindi and most Indian languages have the verb written after the object. For example in English we
write subject-verb-object eg
The river is deep
In Urdu the article THE is usually omitted and the verb is written last eg
The river is deep is written as Nadi gaheri hae ( River deep is ) . Grammaticaly for empahis in dramatic
situations sometimes it would not be wrong to put the verb first eg . This is .... John - Yeh hae ...John!
If however you use it too many times you will start getting strange looks. .
Most inaminate objects have masculine or feminine forms . It would be tedious to have to learn them all. In
general the bigger heavier object is male for eg Rivers are feminine while the Ocean is masculine. For
masculine terms the word ends in an AA sound while for feminine it is ee. - eg
Nadi gaherEE hae
Samundar (ocean) gaherAA hae.
These Urdu lessons are available on a floppy disc with all the images and a book - Learn to read Urdu for $25
inclusive of air postage . Send a cheque for this amount to ukindia box 346 Nottingham UK . You may also
download them from this site.
More vocabulary
apple-seb, orange-malta, peach-ardo(o),mango-aam, strawberry -strawberry, banana-kela, pomigrenate-anar,
pineapple-annanas,cherries-cherries, watermelon-tarbooz
The answers to the above are
figs-anjeer, lychee-lychee, custard apple-sherifa, dates-kjhoor, coconut-nariyal, jambolana-jamun, lady finger-
bhindyan', peas-matar
Lesson 21
At the top in your brower window you will see the address of this page ending with zurdu21.htm . This
signifies lesson 21. If you want to go to lesson 7 say just change it to zurdu7.htm and press enter.
Note how the numbers are written -these are the closest approximation - they are tending to be displaced by
English numerals
Note above that 51 and 15 are written and read as in English even though Urdu reads from R to L.
Continuing with the vocabulary
Above read -yoghurt-dahee, flour-aata, tea-chaye, oil-tael, cheese-paneer, milk-dudh, eggs-ande, butter-
makhkhan, chicken-mugi, meat-gosht,
floor-farsh, door-darvaza, garage-garage, window-khirdki,roof-chhat, chimney-chimney, pillars-sitoon, gate-
phaatak, stairs-sirdhiyan', bed-bister, wall-diwar, pillow-takiya
Lesson 22
More vocabulary
picture-tasveer, table-mez, heater-heater, chair-kursi, sandliyer (lampshade)-fanos, sofa-sofa, cushion-gaddi, -g
(u)ldan, pot-gamla