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Instructions

To hear the sound of the characters, you should download and install the "Real Audio Player" first.
There are up to four shapes four each character: detached, initial, medial and final. This may seem a bit overwhelming at first sight, but it just makes writing faster and the logic of the different shapes will soon be obvious to you.
The shapes shown in the boxes "final" and "medial" should only be used when the characters are connected to the previous character, otherwise you should use the "initial shape".
Itrans code is normally used to produce correctly spelled asian scripts like Devanagari. I have used it here also to help you pronounce correctly the example words, the only addition I made are the brackets which are used to indicate that certain sylables are not pronounced. For more info concerning the Itrans code have a look at the Itrans homepage

Nastaleeq	Name		Final	Medial	Initial
	alif

The 1st letter of the Urdu alphabet:

Example	Itrans
pomegranate	anaar

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note: letters following alif do never connect

Nastaleeq	Pronounced
	Alif madda

This is a long a

Example	Itrans
eye	aa.Nkh

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	bay

The 2nd letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
goat	bak(a)rii

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	pay

The 3rd letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
pencil	pensil

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	tay

The 4th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
butterfly	tit(a)lii

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note 1: This is a dental t.
Note 2: some people call this a soft t.
Note 3: this is the "most common letter" to represent a dental t in Urdu.

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	Tay

The 5th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
cap	Topii

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note 1: This is a retroflex t, you should curl your tong a bit upwards when pronouncing it.
Note 2: Notice the retroflex sign, which is a small version of letter 22
Note 3: Some people call this a hard t

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	say

The 6th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
fruit	samar

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note 1: Samar with the meaning of fruit is a real Urdu word which stems from Arabic. The word samar also exists in Hindi but with a different meaning: war or battle, this meaning comes from Sanskrit.
Note 2: There are remarkably few words in Urdu with this s.

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	jeem

The 7th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
shoe	juutaa

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	chay

The 8th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
moon	caa.Nd

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note: notice the similarity in appearance of the candrabindu-sign in the Hindi-script and the dotted n in the Urdu-script.

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	hay

The 9th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
hookah (device to smoke tobacco using water)	huqqaa

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note 1: the little omega-shaped symbol performs the doubling of the q, this phenomenon is called tashdid. The symbol itself is called shad.
Note 2: This letter occurs only in words of Arabic origin.

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	Khay

The 10th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
rabbit	Kar(a)gosh

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note: This letter is pronounced back in the throat.

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	daal

The 11th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
door	dar(a)vaazaa

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note 1: This letter never connects to the following letter.
Note 2: Some people call this a soft d

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	Daal

The 12th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
bucket	Dol

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note 1: This letter never connects to the following letter.
Note 2: Notice the retroflex sign, which is a small version of letter 22
Note 3: Some people call this a hard d

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	zaal

The 13th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
stock (something hoarded)	zaKiiraa

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note: This letter never connects to the following letter.

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	ray

The 14th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
king	raajaa

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note 1: This letter never connects to the following letter.
Note 2: Notice the difference in position to the main line of writing with the 11th letter (daal).

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	Ray

The 15th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
boy	la.Dkaa

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note 1: This letter never connects to the following letter.
Note 2: Notice the difference in position to the main line of writing with letter 12 (Daal).
Note 3: This is a retroflex r. In the Itrans-system this is written as a D preceded by a dot.
Note 4: Words in Urdu never begin with this letter, that's why the example here has the letter in the middle position.

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	zay

The 16th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
poison	zahar

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note 1: This letter never connects to the following letter.
Note 2: Notice the difference in position to the main line of writing with letter 13 (zaal).
Note 3: This is "the most common letter" to represent a z in Urdu.

Nastaleeq	Pronounced		Final	Medial	Initial
	zhay

The 17th letter of the Urdu alphabet

Example	Itrans
example	exampleitrans

Devanagari	Nastaleeq

Note 1: This letter never connects to the following letter.
Note 2: This letter is rarely used in Urdu ocurring mostly in Persian loanwords.
Note 3: Pronounce this letter like the s in pleasure.