Can you remember what Urdu we’ve covered so far? That’s right, we’ve seen the vowels a and aa in Vowels Part 1, the vowels i and ee in Vowels Part 2 and the consonant ب be in Consonants Part 1. Be sure to head back to those lessons if you’ve forgotten anything!

Today we’re going to learn two more Urdu vowels - u and oo. By the end of this lesson you should be able to read Urdu words like…

      ulloo - Owl

So are you ready to get straight into it? Great! Firstly though, we need to learn a brand new Urdu letter. That is the letter…

It looks a little like an English comma don’t you think? This letter has a bunch of uses and so it has a few difference pronunciations. We’ll go through them all one at a time as they come up so don’t worry yet! Just like the letter Alif, Vaao does not join to the next letter in a word!  

If you can’t see the play button or if it wont work then click here for instructions on how to fix it!

Our first vowel for today is u. This is pronounced just like the ‘u’ in put. It’s a short u sound. It’s equivalent to the Hindi vowel उ u. Click the play button above to hear the vowel pronounced! 

Got it? So how do we write this vowel? Well can you remember that in Urdu letters are different depending on where they are in a word? That means we have to learn how to start a word with u and how to put u in the middle of a word! 

To start a word with the sound u we put what we call a Pesh above the letter alif that we’ve already seen plenty of times! What is a Pesh then? Well it looks just our new letter vaao!

Alif and Pesh     u  (at the start of a word)

So do you want to see a few examples of this? Great, let’s get to it! 

  unglee - Finger  

Can you see our Alif and Pesh at the start of this word (on the right)? Great! The Alif and Pesh tells us we start the word with an u sound! Ready for another example?

       udhar - There 

Can you spot the Alif and Pesh again? Great, see it’s not difficult! So how do we put an u sound in the middle of a word? Well it’s super easy, we just use a Pesh on top of the consonant! 

Can you see the Pesh above each the these three letters, reading right to left, be (The letter we learnt last time), kaaf and seen. The Pesh means we pronounce them bu, ku and su. So let’s see some examples… 

 kursee - Chair  

Can you see our Pesh sitting on top of the first letter in this word? This means we pronounce it ku. Are you with me? Feel free to leave a comment below if you’re at all confused! Ready for one more example word? 

    bukhaar - Fever 

Can you spot the Pesh on the first letter again? You should also recognise the letter be at the start, the letter with the one dot underneath! This means we pronounce it bu! Have you got it? Ready to move on to our next vowel? Great!

The second vowel for today is oo. This is an easy vowel to pronounce, it sounds like the oo in the English word too or food. It’s a long oo sound! Click the play button above to hear it pronounced! This vowel is equivalent to the Hindi vowel ऊ oo. 

So how do we start a word with oo in Urdu? Well we actually start with an Alif and then put our new letter Vaao right after it (You may recognise this as the same pattern from Urdu Vowels Part 2). Do you want to see an example? 

 oopar - Up (Or Upstairs) 

Can you see the Alif and the Vaao at the start of the word? Remember that Vaao does not join to the next letter in the word! 

So how do we add the oo sound to middle of a word? Well it’s easy, we just put a Pesh on the Consonant and then put a Vaao just after it. So let’s see an example…

   jootaa - Shoe 

Can you see the Pesh above the first letter and the Vaao next to it? This means we pronounce it joo. Are you following? Ready for one last example then?

 khoobsoorat - Beautiful 

Wow ok this is quite a long word. There’s actually two oo sounds in this word, can you spot them? Just look for the two Peshs with the Vaaos next to them, one’s right at the start of the word and the other one’s in the middle. Can you spot them? Notice how Vaao doesn’t join to the next letter! 

Well done if you’ve read all the way to here, I know it’s been a long lesson. However we’re not quite finished yet! Below there are 4 Urdu words and I want you to just try and spot all the letters we’ve looked at so far (that includes ones from previous lessons!). Don’t worry about the letters you haven’t seen yet, just look for the one’s you know! So are you ready? 

                  1.  - His / Hers                2.   - Second  

                 3.  - Bad                            4.   -  Urdu

Just to let you know, the first letter of word 2 and the Third letter of 4 are not Vaao even though they look a little like it, they’re actually daal. We’ll cover this later! 

Phew wow, we’re finally finished! Leave any questions or comment if you have them in the comments section just below and I’ll do my best to help! 

Back to the Urdu Section.

Note: As before be aware that the Pesh is rarely written in printed texts, it’s only written when needed for clarity. However I will use it to begin with to help us read and then gradually remove it!