Drawing the Persian Alphabet
Drawing the Persian Alphabet
This lesson provides you with information on Farsi reading and writing, and by the end of this lesson, you’ll have learned the first three letters of Persian alphabet.
Farsi is written from right to left. That means whenever you open a book in Farsi, or even your Farsi practicing notebook, you’re gonna open it from the right.
The next thing is that Farsi letters can get attached together, but be careful that I’m saying they CAN get attached, because some of the letters are isolated, and they do not get attached to other letters. With that said, now let’s get started.
The Persian alphabet contains 32 letters. The first letter is called الف [ælef] . As you see here, الف has two forms آ,ا.
The different forms of a letter, depends on where they appear in a word. This one is called آی اول [ɒːye ævvæl], the initial آ[ɒː], and it sounds like [ɒː]. This is how you would write it: You would first draw a line from top to bottom:
and then you put this little hat-thing on it:
As its name suggests, it comes at the beginning of the words, for example in the words: آب [ɒːb], آن[ɒːn], آش[ɒːʃ], and if you’re asking yourself, yes, there are longer words containing the initial آ, but for the sake of simplicity, let’s just stick to these.
If you don’t know the meaning of these words, or the other letters these words contain, it’s OK. The thing we do care about is that the letter آ, the initial آ, does not get attached to the letters coming after it. That’s something we care a lot about, in Farsi, so be careful of that.
What if you wanted to use آ in the middle or at the end of a word? That’s when you would use the non-initial ا [ɒː], which looks like this: ا. It looks just like the initial one, but it lacks the hat. So if you were to write it, you would draw a line from top to bottom.
Some words containing this are the words: تاب [tɒːb] ,بابا [bɒːbɒː] and also the word را[ɾɒː].
ا is not attached to the letters on the left-hand side if it, but whether it gets attached to the letters on the right-hand side, really depends on the letters coming on the right. So in the word را, it’s not attached to it, but in the words بابا and تاب, it is. Well, one other thing to mention about the non-initial ا is that it can have other sounds, rather than[ɒː] , but we’ll cover that in another lesson on vowels.
Let’s move on to the next letter. The next letter in Farsi is called ب[be]: بـ ب . It sounds [b]. Again it has two forms, but this time, it’s not about being initial or non-initial,it’s about being non-ending بـ, or ending ب.
The non-ending بـ, comes either at the beginning, or in the middle of the words. This is how you would write it down:
Really be careful not to forget the dot under it, it’s very important.
Do you remember my last example بابا? This word contains the non-ending بـ in it. Be careful of the way it’s written: بـ is attached to the letter coming after it. One other example would be the word ببر [bæbɾ]. As you can see, this word contains two of these, one at the beginning and the other in the middle. One other example would be the word بال[bɒːl]. The other form of ب, the ending ب, looks like this: ب. As you can see, because of the curve on its left corner, nothing can get attached to it, and this is how you would write it:
You can think of it as a thing like a boat. Do you remember my example آب? This contains one initial آ, and one ending ب. Other examples are the words: باب[bɒːb] and the word تاب[tɒːb]. As you can see,in the ending ب, there is nothing to get attached to on the left-hand side, but if possible, depending on the letter coming on the right-hand side, it can get attached to the letter on the right.
Let’s move on to the next letter, the third letter of Farsi, which is the last letter we’re working on, today: پـ پ
Looks familiar, doesn’t it? This is the letter پ[pe]. پ sounds like [p] and as you can see, it looks very much like the letter ب, with the difference of having 3 dots under it, but the rules about it, like how it gets attached to other letters, are just like ب, and we draw it just like ب. One thing to mention here, is that you can put the dots like these in order to be faster:
It only depends on your taste of beauty, so whatever way you find more beautiful, you can write it that way, but just in case you see these ones in someone’s handwriting, they are all the same. Some words containing this non-ending پـ are the words: پا [pɒː],پدر [pedæɾ] ,پتو [pætuː]. In all these three words, as you can see, پـ is attached to the letter coming after it. The second form of پ, the ending پ, is drawn like ب:
Some words containing this, are the words تاپ, or the word for pop music, پاپ[pɒːp], or the word توپ[tuːp]
This brings us to the end of today’s lesson. I strongly recommend you to practice writing Farsi, for example write a whole line of each letter, each time pronouncing its name and the sound it makes (you can use the worksheet below), or you can in the Farsi text bellow, highlight the letters you have learned, this would help you a lot for recognizing the letters faster, whenever you see them in a word.
Download the worksheet to practice drawing the Persian alphabet
پدرم با دست پر به خانه آمد. مادرم برای کمک رفت. ما شام درست کردیم. با هم غذا خوردیم. غذا، مزه ی خوبی داشت. خوشحال، به اتاقم رفتم و خوابیدم، خیلی خسته بودم. فردا صبح، با نشاط بیدار شدم.
How many of each letter could you find? Use the voice/text comment section below, and l will tell you if you got it right!
Practice drawing the Persian alphabet
آ : آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ آ
ا : ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا ا
بـ : بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ بـ
ب : ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب ب
پـ : پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ پـ
پ : پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ پ
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