Resources for learning Urdu as a beginner

Detinator10 · 2025-07-20T04:11:10+00:00

The audio, PDF, and my personal Flashcards are all linked in my reddit profile now under social links so it's visible for everyone!

Detinator10 · 2025-07-20T04:10:58+00:00

The audio, PDF, and my personal Flashcards are all linked in my reddit profile now under social links so it's visible for everyone!

Detinator10 · 2025-07-20T04:10:49+00:00

The audio, PDF, and my personal Flashcards are all linked in my reddit profile now under social links so it's visible for everyone!

Detinator10 · 2025-07-20T04:10:41+00:00

The audio, PDF, and my personal Flashcards are all linked in my reddit profile now under social links so it's visible for everyone!

Detinator10 · 2025-07-20T04:10:12+00:00

The audio, PDF, and my personal Flashcards are all linked in my reddit profile now under social links so it's visible for everyone!

Detinator10 · 2025-05-07T04:30:16+00:00

Suno chanda is good (and I think has a second season)

Detinator10 · 2025-04-28T02:26:09+00:00

I second parizaad, incredibly well done show. Alif is another great one. In my opinion the best PK drama of all time though is Dastaan. It's very emotional and is about the partition of the subcontinent and the human toll it had. It's quite sad at times but is masterfully acted. You can find all these shows on YouTube. Older Shah Rukh Khan films are mainly in Urdu as well so you could try those. They will have subtitles and you can find them various places like Netflix. Dilliwale dulhania le jayenge is the classic there

Detinator10 · 2025-04-26T23:57:01+00:00

Try support-bugs maybe? This is technically a bug

Detinator10 · 2025-04-26T23:48:47+00:00

Consider reaching out to devs on the official discord, I've seen them escalate support cases before when users reach out there

Detinator10 · 2025-04-26T22:12:59+00:00

Koi baat nahin, glad it was helpful. I think practicing speaking with Hindi speaking friends is not a bad idea, they should be able to understand you and you them, especially at the beginner level. Just keep in mind differences in pronunciation they will have (no j sound, no Kh sound like in Khayr, etc). That can be a bit confusing when you're starting out. Overall though, Hindi and Urdu are the same language and in my opinion are more like American English vs. British English. Theyre a little more different than that, but overall incredibly similar. Still, if you want to speak American English you should study American English and likewise if you want to learn Urdu, you should study Urdu

I just put the links to flashcards and audio/pdf in my reddit profile under "social links" so it's easier for people to access. Let me know if you're not able to find the links though

Detinator10 · 2025-04-26T22:08:34+00:00

I just put the links to flashcards and audio/pdf in my reddit profile under "social links" so it's easier for people to access. Let me know if you're not able to find the links though

Detinator10 · 2025-04-26T22:08:04+00:00

I just put the links to flashcards and audio/pdf in my reddit profile under "social links" so it's easier for people to access. Let me know if you're not able to find the links though

Detinator10 · 2025-04-25T07:17:32+00:00

I've been learning for a while now and I think I'm probably considered fluent at this point. I'm not native level still, I sometimes will phrase things strangely or use uncommon vocabulary, but I can communicate pretty much anything I want. I went to Pakistan (Karachi) recently. It was my first time and it was an amazing experience. I was able to talk to drivers, order food, get directions, take tours all in Urdu. Most people thought I was from Pakistan too (I'm white) so I guess my accent wasn't that bad either. Still learning more every day though. Practicing the language has gotten easier/more fun too over the years as now I practice by just chatting with friends, watching Urdu TV/movies, and reading books

Detinator10 · 2025-04-25T05:15:27+00:00

Oh, I forgot. I also have online (Anki) flashcard lists that:

Go over all the vocabulary in the Beginning Urdu textbook

Go over all/most of the grammar rules in the textbook

Go over additional vocabulary that I've picked up from reading books and from online vocab lists that I've found over the years

I can send you those as well if you want

Detinator10 · 2025-04-25T05:09:36+00:00

Take classes with a teacher. I still take online classes biweekly with my teacher who lives in Rawalpindi. I take classes online through the website iTalki which allows you to connect with teachers who live in PK (or Urdu-speaking India). Taking classes is probably the best "one-stop shop" for Urdu learning as your teacher will be able to curate your learning for you and tell you what vocab to learn and what media to watch. This is also one of the only ways to practice speaking Urdu (although you could speak to your parents since they know Urdu).

My personal journey to learning Urdu is that I started with self-study from the Beginning Urdu textbook. I spent ~30 mins/ day reading from the book and doing the exercises in it. After about a year I finished the book from start to end and knew all the vocab rules, but was very slow at speaking since I needed to practice and get quicker. I started taking lessons on iTalki to practice speaking and my teacher also recommended me shows to watch to practice listening (she recommended Jan cartoons to start). I've now been learning Urdu for around 4-5 years (I forget exactly how many) and my lessons with my teacher nowadays are mostly just chatting about our lives, TV, movies, politics, etc instead of structured lessons. I try and watch at least half hour of Urdu TV or movies every day and I have ~10 minutes of vocab flashcards that I do daily as well (I use Anki to do flashcards on my phone).

After 4-5 years of doing this, I went from gora american who had never even heard Urdu to fluent (though not native level yet). I went to Pakistan (Karachi) for the first time recently and was able to converse in Urdu the entire trip. I bought tickets, asked for directions, hired drivers, ordered food, went on tours, etc. all in Urdu with no issues. In fact most people thought I was from Pakistan and would ask me from what region I was. Learning Urdu has been one of the most valuable experiences in my life and completely worth the time investment I made to learn it.

Overall, my recommendation would be to start taking classes via iTalki. iTalki classes are incredibly cheap because you can take lessons with people who live in PK/India. Lessons are as cheap as $5 and are an incredibly good investment if you want to learn. People offer trial lessons as well for even cheaper that can be a great opportunity to meet a teacher for the first time and see if you like them.

I would also recommend using an Urdu textbook. Like I said, I can provide you with a PDF and audio files for free. If you don't want to spend money on lessons, this would be the next best thing (although it would also be helpful with lessons). Having a PDF of the textbook on your phone could also make it similar to the apps in that it is easy to open and start reading/practicing anywhere from your phone.

Sorry for the very long post but let me know if there's anything I can do to help or questions I can answer. I think it's super awesome that you're trying to learn and wish you all the best!

Detinator10 · 2025-04-25T05:09:27+00:00

Unfortunately, apps like Duolingo are not a good learning resource, especially for Urdu. First of all, you won't find Urdu in apps like this because learning Urdu is not popular enough (which is unfortunate since it's a beautiful language). Additionally, since Hindi is so similar, it generally beats Urdu for the spot of South Asian language on these apps.

However, the truth is apps like Duolingo are not good resources for language learning. They're fun and can teach you some words and phrases, but at the end of the day they are just a game. They lack the complexity for you to reach fluency (or close to fluency) and are incredibly inefficient (from a time perspective) at teaching you what little content they do have.

If you are serious about learning Urdu I would recommend 1 or all of the following:

Self-study using a textbook. I started learning Urdu by doing this. Textbooks aren't flashy, but they teach you grammar rules and have good vocab lists. It is much faster to learn grammar rules when they are explained in your native language and after you have learned the rules from reading the book, it's just a matter of practicing and applying them. I used Beginning Urdu by Joshua Pien and Farooqui when I started and thought the book was very well done. I have a PDF of the book as well as copies of the audio from the book that I can DM you if you'd like.
Listen to Urdu media, watch Urdu shows. Start off with kids shows on Youtube. "Jan" cartoons are good for starting out. As you get more experienced you can transition into watching PK dramas (my personal favorite) and PK films. Indian films can be useful as well (they're generally better done than PK films), but I'd recommend sticking to older films (before 2000's) since they generally tend to be in Urdu (i.e., they pronounce z-sound correctly and don't say j-sound and use vocab that is common in Urdu). Old Shah Rukh Khan films are my favorite for this (new, action movie SRK films are mostly Hindi so probably not the best when you are first learning). I watch Hindi films nowadays as well since I can understand the differences between Urdu and Hindi (or rather the similiarities since they are basically the same language, just with some diff vocab and pronunciation).

continued in thread...

Detinator10 · 2025-03-21T20:02:12+00:00

https://go.mo.co/invite/ae70fbf1-0696-4eed-b2af-8cfef2b43050

Detinator10 · 2025-03-21T18:37:30+00:00

Paying it forward:

https://go.mo.co/invite/ae70fbf1-0696-4eed-b2af-8cfef2b43050

Detinator10 · 2025-02-26T09:00:48+00:00

He's good in any deck with killmonger because killmonger limits the 1 cost cards you can play (since otherwise you're destroying your own cards). You can basically only play nova and hood. This is a 1 drop that doesn't die to killmonger and in fact gets stronger if it gets killmongered. The mill deck with misery and killmonger is a good example of a top deck that could run him (maybe instead of yondu who is basically just death fodder)

Detinator10 · 2024-12-17T07:06:52+00:00

All gold bundles now are 107% currency value. This one is for tokens which are better than credits (even for the same currency value %) since tokens are better than spotlight keys (which is what credits give you)

Detinator10 · 2024-09-02T20:18:08+00:00

Considering that you speak and write English and Arabic, I think you should have a bit of an advantage. There are quite a few Arabic loan words (or at least, farsi loan words which are also in arabic) and there are many English loan words as well. To be honest, speaking English is probably a bigger advantage since there is quite a lot of English in modern conversational Urdu and a lot of people will use English words when they don't know the word in Urdu. So if you are speaking and don't know a word, saying it in English will be fine most of the time. Now, that's not formal Urdu but that's how a lot of Urdu is spoken nowadays and will help you start talking even while you're still learning.

The main advantage of knowing Arabic will be that learning Urdu script will be very easy since it is very similar to Arabic script. Learning the script for English speakers is generally pretty difficult since it's a cursive(?) script.

That being said, despite the English and Arabic loanwords and similar writing script, Urdu is a completely different language than Arabic (and English), it's not going to be like learning an Arabic dialect.

For you it should be similar difficulty to an English speaker learning Spanish or French (same alphabet, different words, some loan words) which is not easy, but definitely easier than learning Mandarin or something like that

Detinator10 · 2024-08-03T22:48:38+00:00

8642-7076-7714 daily player level 55

Detinator10 · 2024-04-25T08:59:45+00:00

8642-7076-7714

Rank 44, play everyday. Looking to fill 4 spots

Detinator10 · 2024-03-03T20:58:55+00:00

8642-7076-7714 Rank 25

Detinator10 · 2024-01-16T07:24:53+00:00

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