Learn to Read Urdu

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Learn ToRead Urdu

Francisco Jose


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Learn to Read Urdu

Urdu is a very popular language of the subcontinent , second only in the number of speakers to Hindi. It is thenational language of Pakistan and an offical language of UP in India . It is the language of poetry and ofliterature .

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 lineslowly and study each part of a figure closely the first time , and then re-read it carefully again to make thewhole 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 solessons 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 orend 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 itoccurs in the beginning of a word as in the word Kill it is written as in the next one along -ie its inital formmarked 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 theend of the word as in ducK it is like the 4th final form to your extreme left.

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The above figure has the detached , initial . medial and final forms of K and N. You may have noted that thedetached 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.


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Supposing we wanted to make say a meaningless two letter word with a starting ( initial) letter K and endingwith N .

We would take the intial form of K marked 2 in the figure above and the final form of N marked 4 and jointhem together . Remember to read it R to L.

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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 thesecond word is k'n with the k pronounced a little longer since the accent mark (zabar) is over the k . The nextword 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 ,aeand aae are obvious from the figure and are explained in more detail after the figure .


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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 iswritten 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

you may have to read it as

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

in this word kOOn.

For the mark O as in cOne the worm like mark is on its own without the pesh


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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)

and between kEEn and cAAEn

and between kUn and kAUn

and between kOOn and kAUn


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This is a very important area so make sure you get them all right . There is revision of the vowel marks in the

figure below. Note however there is a new accent mark called a zabar above the kn word second from yourright. It signifies that the accent should be on k so making and not on n in this word here - so it should soundkughn and not knugh. This will become clearer later. Continuing , the third word from R to L on the top line isthe word kaan (ear) . The vowel mark AA is a straight vertical line put after K .Note the K changing shapeslightly in the figure for KAAN . A vowel mark like AA is not attached to the letter which follows after it , so Nhere is written on its own.

The vowel mark AA as we noted above is written as a straight vertical line. The next word to it on your left iskin . 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 EEmark below the letter.


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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

on level with the letter.

Next in the figure here

is O as in cone (icecream cone)- the worm on its own makes an O sound ; but when a zabar is added above theletter it makes an Au -KAUN (who in Urdu ) as in AUtumn . Note the difference between the words KOONand KAUN in the bigger figure above. . kOOn has a pesh on top of the worm while kAUn has a zabar on top ofthe worm.

Next below is ae as in cane (sugar) with two dots below. See if you can spot the difference between the wordCane below and the word KEEN above. Thats right ! , the only difference between an AE vowel mark and anEE 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 AAEsound 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 theseintroductory lessons red some children's study books. The reason is that newspapers tend to leave out the smallvowel marks of little i and little u and tend to put one word on top of another and you will get very confusedunless you are confident of your vowels.


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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 soundedexcept 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 youhave the vowels right. As a test see if you get them all in the next figure.


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Here are the answers

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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 aletter 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.

Examples below. Note that the first word is a or ugh as in 'U'nder.


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Note there are two ae letters. The bottom is used when ae is on its eg Ae cat sat while the one above it is usedwhen AE joins the next letter eg in AEK (one).

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.

Make sure you can tellthe difference between ae and big eee ( there is an extra zer at the bottom for eee). Between u and big ooo and

between ooo and au ( au has a zabar on top ). It is important to get up and cram these vowel marks as they makethe language very easy to read once you have done that.


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*As in Hindi the nasal n as in the word song is marked with a dot over the letter.*

After Aliph the next letters in the alphabet are B , P , Te (soft as in tota-parrot) , T , and S.-written from your Rto 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 ) . comesat the beginning ( second right on your screen) , middle - 3rd from the Right or final (leftmost )

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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 whichyou have not met before ( in the word KI below). Also note the little omega sign -called TASHDID-at the topof 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.


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Do you know what the above - Aap ke Abba ki Kitab - means ? It says this book belongs to your father . Abbais 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 thenext figure after the one below.

The answers are


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The unlabelled figure is of course the English word TENT.

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 Urduwords in the first line and English in the next one.


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The answers are Pakistan ( this is a different form of S - a new letter will be introduced in the figures sometimesbefore without prewarning and you have to make a best guess what it might sound like - its a good practice toget 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 hasname and then mine. Note the hamza - a little one put over a vowel when one vowel follows another as here inthe word MINE the vowel AA is followed by EE.

. Other points to note are that theintial B or P has a short vertical rather than horizontal line when it has a vowel with it as in the word NO aboveand that the letter S often has an elongated shape as in the word Pakistan . Note also that the mark over the t in

potato converts it into a hard T as in Turkey.


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It seems that the first soldiers who got to the subcontinent did not speak the Queen's English . So that the wordCALL ( to call ) somebody is ususally written and pronounced as CAAL rather than CAUL by Urdu speakers.Also there is a tendency to add an I at the beginning whenever an English word is written with Urdu script , sothe word SPIRIT for eg. is written and pronounced as ISPIRIT , school is written as ischool etc. Here howeverwe will try and stick close to the English pronounciation.

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 AeThen 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 caneasily be confused with the vowel mark ae .Third is the long Ae . Next on the left are the two useful consonantsH and L .

These are the four forms of each letter .


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Note that the medial form of a has a closed loop on top.Note L initial or medial can be confused with alif andthe L final with the undotted N. If we look at the letters above we can form some new words with these and the

previous letters. Try and read the words below . Each line is a mxture of English and urdu words. The answerscome afterwards. There are examples of the inital , medial and final forms of each letter as far as possible.

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Lets make some words using the above . Have a go at reading them.

Here are the answers.


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Lesson 5

There is a special form of H marked as " special H " in the figure below which is sounded with the letter andgives it a deeper more resonant sound .For example K as in the word King becomes KH as in KHan .B as in Bat becomes BH as in BHai (brother) .P as in Peter changes to PH as in PHil and we will meet more in the lessons to follow.

The next figure has all Urdu words since these aspirated consonants do not occur in English. Line 1 has thecommon 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.


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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.


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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 shouldbe able to reread them easily. Masculine words end with Aa egDada ( grandfather) while feminine words end with i - Dadi (grandmother). Another example isChacha (uncle) and Chachi ( Aunt). In the figure below the first line has English words. The second and thirdone have one of the most beautiful buildings in the world and Urdu words.


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Revise your vowel marks to see if you agree with the answers above. Note the sound doubler in Bachcha - onLine 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 wordsJhanda -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.


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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 thethroat- 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. Thereason is that often there are no spaces between the words in the newspapers. It is not necessary for experiencedreaders as they can tell instantly from the final form of a letter where the word ends but the lack of space beforethe next word can be very confusing for beginners. Another reason is that sometimes the space below a lettergets 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 thanfifteen minutes each time and you will find the learning experience a lot smoother .


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Lesson 7

Most lessons are corrected and then reposted. So even if you have read them once it is a good idea to rereadthem 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 youhave not met so far.


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and


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The new letter is of course G.


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Remember H , Y and E.

and the vowel marks


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and a vowel mark on its own at the beginning.

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

.


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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.

Here are the answers .


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The next line has similar looking letters to the above and are called R, DE ( pronouced by curling the tongueright back behind that for the letter d and then bringing it forward as in D. Example the words ladki (girl) , and

two more Zs .

Here are all the forms of the letters

As you will see from above Urdu has borrowed many letters from Persian and Arabic and so there are multipleletters for the same sounds such asZ , H , S , KH etc.


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Can you read the following English sentences ?

here are the answers


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These are the letters learned in this lesson . Reading from your Right to Left.

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 itrapidly without touching the palate. The special H makes an aspirated sound as in the words outlined below .See if you can read them


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Note that 2.DHOOD and 1. DHOD are pronounced the same although technicaly the later is not correct. This isa problem for beginners as vowel marks like the pesh mark in 2 are often left out.


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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 andZvad the bottom two are borrowed from the Persian .Read the following words.The last line has Urdu words.


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Ignore the problems of scale . They will be corrected at a later date. They may not be written as in an Urdudictionary because the pesh mark often (eg in the word for soap) gets left out. Also usually left out is the zabaror accent mark ( except in the word must below) since it is assumed that all English speakers know where to putthe accent. Often the accent zabar mark is left out anyway.



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Read the following English sentences . Note the Z and S letters have been used liberally and this may not be theform you may find in the dictionaries.



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Lesson 11

The next two letters are another form of the soft t and another z. They are called T'o and Zo .

The t' sound is produced by protruding the tip of the tongue just beyond the upper teeth and letting the frontthird 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.

Read the following


Related to the above sounds are TH as in Thanks or in the word marked A below (thin)-note the two dots overthe 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.


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Lets look at two more letters. The first is another form of A called Aaen and the second with the dot on top isanother form of G called Gaaen.

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The first Aaen is pronounced as an ugh followed by aa for eg the word to forgive maaf is really pronounce asm-ugh-aa-f

Try and read the following Urdu words.


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Lesson 12

The next line of the Urdu alphabet contains the letters F pronounced as Fe and Q sounded as Quaf . The four

forms of these letters are as follows


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Read the following sentences where all the four forms of each of these letters is used .Line A below has English words while line B is made of Urdu words . Note again that the zer mark may bemissing in for example the word for love when reading Urdu papers.Note also that in the word LIFE the F isslightly modified with a small vertical stem initally

The answers are

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 readas L which has the same form as A


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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 arewritten 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 thedot in the middle.

In the figure above the letter for v , also serves as an O.

See if you can read the two English and one Urdu sentences below .


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Answers are

Technically the O should be distinguished from the V by the fact that O should have a vowel mark over it as inthe word LAaO . However this rule is not always followed.


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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 , THEand D as in the examples below. In each case the letter being modified is written above the word. The special Hmakes 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.


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Answer

Y is written like an H but with two dots below the letter.


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Here is how it used in its three forms.


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Answer

Here is how the final letters big E - EE and big A - Ae can be used


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Answer

Lesson 15

These lessons contains a couple of hundreds of Urdu vocabulary. It is most important to recognise the finalform of letters as otherwise it can be extremely difficult to know where a word ends and another begins , sorevise 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 accentin 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 bigEE- 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 arewritten in small case.


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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.


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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 wouldbe 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 thewords for gorilla, squireel, baboon, stag,dear ,tiger and snake.


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See if you can read the ones coming next

Rabbit-khargosh,dog-kutta, goat -bakri , pig-suar, cat-billi, fish-machhli,horse-ghod'a,tortoise-kchhwa, bufalo-bhaens, sheep, mouse-chooha, camel-oont.


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Lesson 16

The next figure contains some common urdu words. Notice that some short vowel marks are left out. These areindicated in brackets in the answers. The shlrt u , short i and the i mark modifying the ae into an big ee voweloften suffer this fate.

The answers reading from your right arem(aae)n -me , t(u)m -you , a(a)p-you (polite) , hm -we , vh-she ,he , they , itsecond line meree -mine, kya-what, hae -is , n(h)(ee)n'-no,han' -yes , lek(i)n-but, ph(i)r bi (even so)fourth line -ma-mother , baap-father , bchcha-child, mal(oo)m- to know.


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Continuing with more vocabulary

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.


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Lets look at some parts of the body

ear-kaan , eye-ankh,lips-hont, forehead-peshani, nose-nak , head-sr, tongue-zbaan , mouth-mun'h, thigh-ran,

chin-thodi,foot-paon,neck-gurdan


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Answers shoulder-kandha, ankle-tkhnh , back-peetth, hand-hath, thumb-angoottha, palm-hatheli, nail-nakhoon,arm-bazo, knee-gutthna, beard-dhadi, elbow-kuhni , finger -ungli

Teeth-dant',chest-chhati,eyebrow-abro,waist-kmar,eyelashes-palken, hair-baal,moustache -moonchh

Lesson 17

Lets read the following real life ad


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It readsAgar aap mulk jane se ek hafta pehleIf you country going to one week before

saman book carvayen to aap ka samanluggae book do then your luggageaap 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


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Each line readsAap ki khidmat men pesh intercargoHum Pakistan jane walon ke liye Pakistan mein custom clearance

bhi karvaten haen. Aap duniya men kahin bi jana chaen to humto hum se aap kisi bi airlines ke ticket kharid sakte hainhar 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 ortruck.Note vocabulary duniya=world, khidmat=service, kharid=buy, ghadiya=car


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Lets resume the vocabulary

Reading the above from L to R as in Englishliver=j(i)gr, brain=dimag , lungs=phephre , windpipe = nrkhra, heart=dil, vein=rg, stomach=maida,artery=shryan, kidney=gurde


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Illnesess -sprain=moch , fever=b(u)khar, headache=sirdurd, cold=zukam , swelling=sujan, blood=khoon,toothache=dantdurd

ocupations - porter=qulee, postman=dakyh, launderer=dhobi, judge=judge, fisherman=machera,clown=mskhrh,soldier=foji, lawyer=vakeel

Lesson 18

Continuing with the vocabulary

Months - september , mai (may), january , october , june , february , november , july , march , december ,aguust , april (aepril )


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anklet-janjher , necklace -haar, ear ring-baliyan', bangles-chriyan, broch -broch , ring - anghuti (finger), chain-zanzir, watch-ghadi, nosering -nath, hair pin-pin

hafte ke din ( week of days)sunday-itwar, wednesday-budh, monday-somvar, thrusday-jumaraat, tuesday-mangal, friday-jummah, saturday-hefteh


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hoof-khur, horns-sing, udders-thn, claw-punjah, tail-dum , mane-ayyal, trunksudh, hump-kohan, feather-purr,beak-chunch, wing-punkah

Birds- tota-parrot, swan-huns, ostrich-shutarmurgh, vulture-geedh, crane-sarus, owl-uloo, swallo-albel, heron-bagla, peacock-mor, crow-kwwa.


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Lesson 19


flamingo-bag, sparrow-chirya, pelican-abiprindah, cuckoo-koyal, kite-cheel, eagle-aqaab, dove-faqt, quail-btaer, starling-maena,phesant-chkor, magpie-neelkantth


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Insects-fly-makkhi, ant-chiyunti, ladybird-surkhi, wevil-ghun, mosquito-machhar, snail-gongha, bedbug-khatmal, moth-patnga, flea-pisu, scorpion-bichhua, locust-tiddi.

louse-joon'. wasp-zunboor, beetle-bhoza, cockroach-jingher, crab-kakeda, glowworm-jugnoo, spider-mukddi,butterfly-titlee.


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fruit- grapes-angoor, lemon-leemon, grapefruit-chodar, melon-kharbuz, pawpaw-papita, plums-aloochae, pear-nashpati, tangerine-sanugtra, damson- , mulberry-shahtoot, guava-amrood.

Lesson 20

Urdu and Hindi and most Indian languages have the verb written after the object. For example in English wewrite subject-verb-object egThe 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 dramaticsituations 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. Ingeneral the bigger heavier object is male for eg Rivers are feminine while the Ocean is masculine. Formasculine terms the word ends in an AA sound while for feminine it is ee. - eg

Nadi gaherEE haeSamundar (ocean) gaherAA hae.

These Urdu lessons are available on a floppy disc with all the images and a book - Learn to read Urdu for $25inclusive of air postage . Send a cheque for this amount to ukindia box 346 Nottingham UK . You may alsodownload them from this site.

More vocabulary


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apple-seb, orange-malta, peach-ardo(o),mango-aam, strawberry -strawberry, banana-kela, pomigrenate-anar, pineapple-annanas,cherries-cherries, watermelon-tarbooz


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The answers to the above arefigs-anjeer, lychee-lychee, custard apple-sherifa, dates-kjhoor, coconut-nariyal, jambolana-jamun, lady finger-

bhindyan', peas-matar

The above read radish-mooli, tinde-tinde, aubergine-baengan,beans-phliyan', coriander-dhaniya, capsicum-shimlamirch, cucumber-kheera, pumpkin-kaddu hlwah, p(o)tato-aloo


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In the final figure above we have courgette-tori, gourd-kaddu, fenugreek-methi, tomato-tmatr, sugar-shakar,onion-pyaz, spinach-paluk, cabbage -bandghobi, bitter gourd-krela, garlic-luhsan, carrot-gajar.

Lesson 21

At the top in your brower window you will see the address of this page ending with zurdu21.htm . Thissignifies 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 byEnglish numerals

Note above that 51 and 15 are written and read as in English even though Urdu reads from R to L.


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Above read -yoghurt-dahee, flour-aata, tea-chaye, oil-tael, cheese-paneer, milk-dudh, eggs-ande, butter-makhkhan, chicken-mugi, meat-gosht,


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floor-farsh, door-darvaza, garage-garage, window-khirdki,roof-chhat, chimney-chimney, pillars-sitoon, gate-phaatak, stairs-sirdhiyan', bed-bister, wall-diwar, pillow-takiya

plant-poda, blanket-kambal, tap-nalka, drawer-drwaz, comb-kanga, lamp-lamp, soap-sab(u)n, bottle-bot'l

Lesson 22

More vocabulary


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picture-tasveer, table-mez, heater-heater, chair-kursi, sandliyer (lampshade)-fanos, sofa-sofa, cushion-gaddi, -g(u)ldan, pot-gamla

Above read shoes-joote, h(aae)t-topee, boots-boot, socks-jurraben, sl(i)pper-chappal, gloves-dastane,handkerchief-romal, beltt-peti, socks-juraben , gloves-dastane.

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