FAQ

These are answers to certain questions that students and would-be students ask me all the time. For Urdu-related questions, my ustānī Fran Pritchett's page on Urdu Language Learning Resources is extremely useful.

Q: I am an Urdu/Hindi speaker and I want to learn how to read and write in the Urdu script. I am not in Montreal and cannot take your Introductory Urdu-Hindi course. Do you have any advice for me?

While I currently use Fauzia Farooqui's Beginning Urdu to teach both the Urdu language and the script, Richard Delacy's Teach Yourself Urdu Script is the standard textbook for learning the script only. I highly recommend it. The writing stencils in Akbar Hyder and Ali Asani's Let's Study Urdu are also very helpful.

Here are some other resources:

• Positional variants of letters (C. M. Naim) - In the nasta'līq script, letters in certain combinations tend to change their appearance. I explain these in class; for example re is a voracious letter that "swallows up" the upward crest of letters that come before it. This is a table of some of the most common positional variants.
• Lessons in Urdu Script, Mohammed Zakir, 1973
• Fran Pritchett's notes on the script
• C. M. Naim on Urdu grammar and script

Q: How can I get some practice reading Urdu?

Generally my advice to students who already can read Urdu but lack confidence is that they should plunge into reading what interests them. If they really need a place to begin, Sa'adat Hasan Manto's short stories in Manto-nama and Manto-rama tend to be easy and interesting, and many translations exist against which to check one's understanding of the text.

That said, here are some relatively easy texts designed for learners:

• Gopi Chand Narang. Readings in Urdu Literary Prose
• C. M. Naim. Readings in Urdu: Prose and Poetry
• Frances Pritchett. "Fran's Favourites" including study sites on Mir, Ghalib, Sauda, Iqbal, Umrao Jaan, Toba Tek Singh, and many others
• Shamsur Rahman Faruqi. Urdu kī na’ī kitāb.

Q: What Urdu-English, English-Urdu, or Urdu-Urdu dictionaries do you recommend?

• Oxford English Urdu Dictionary McGill ISL PK1976 H377 2003 - the standard English-Urdu dictionary for learners
• Student’s Standard English-Urdu Dictionary McGill ISL PK1976 A23 1960 - by the important Urdu scholar ‘Abd al-Haqq
• Qaumi English-Urdu Dictionary - the best English-Urdu dictionary I have seen, but not really for beginners
• Ferozsons Urdu-English Dictionary McGill ISL PK1976 F4 1987 - a fairly standard Urdu-English dictionary 
• Anjuman's Urdu-English Dictionary McGill ISL PK1976 A28 1987 - by the important Urdu scholar ‘Abd al-Haqq
• John T. Platts. A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English - the best Urdu/Hindi-English dictionary for pre-1900 literature (online)
• Urdu-English Dictionary - many entries but not very reliable; they have a useful iPhone app
• Urdu Dictionary (powered by Mediawiki) - the best Urdu-Urdu dictionary I have seen online; apparently they have an Android app
• Farhang-i Asafiyyah McGill ISL PK1977 A45 1986 - the standard classical Urdu-Urdu dictionary
• Urdū lughat: Tārīkhī usūl par McGill ISL PK1977 U74 1977 - the OED of Urdu dictionaries (Urdu-Urdu); it runs to many vols and I'm not sure whether it was ever finished