How this course works
Urdu — اردو — is the national language of Pakistan and one of India’s official languages, with well over 200 million speakers. It is written in a beautiful cursive script called Nastaliq, and that script is the reason most beginners give up. This course exists to get you past it.
What you will be able to do
By the end you will read and write the Urdu script, pronounce the sounds English lacks, greet people properly, introduce yourself, build sentences in the present tense, count, shop, and ask directions.
How this course differs from the 20-day plans
This platform offers three Urdu courses. Choose by what you want:
| COURSE | BEST FOR |
|---|---|
| This one — Basic Urdu, 6 weeks | Learning the script properly and building a foundation, with reading as a real goal |
| Urdu in 20 Days, Bengali speaker’s route | Speaking fast, if you already speak Bengali. Script optional |
| Urdu in 20 Days, English speaker’s route | Speaking fast, from English. Script optional |
The 20-day plans are conversation sprints that treat reading as a bonus. This course is slower and teaches the script first.
How it is arranged
| MODULE | WHAT IT COVERS |
|---|---|
| The script | All 39 letters, joining, and the vowel marks |
| Words and sentences | Pronouns, honorifics, word order, the present tense |
| First conversations | Greetings, introductions, questions, requests |
| Everyday Urdu | Numbers, family, food and shopping, time and directions |
| Reading practice | Putting it together, and where to go next |
How to study
Write every letter by hand, ten times in each of its forms. Nastaliq is cursive and the hand learns it faster than the eye.
Say everything aloud. Urdu has retroflex consonants, a uvular ق, and aspiration contrasts that English does not.
Thirty to forty minutes per lesson.
ABOUT THE TRANSLITERATION Roman Urdu is not standardised. This course writes what is easiest to pronounce and notes where Roman cannot distinguish two different Urdu sounds — خ and کھ are both written “kh”, and they are not the same.