The Persian Alphabet: 32 Letters and How to Read Farsi

The Persian alphabet, also called the Farsi alphabet, has 32 letters. It is the Arabic script with four letters added for sounds Arabic doesn’t have: پ (p), چ (ch), ژ (zh) and گ (g). It is written right to left, most letters join to the next one, and the short vowels are usually left out, so reading takes some practice even after you know every letter.

This guide takes the letters, names and sounds from our free Persian alphabet chart, and the practice words come from our list of the most common Persian words, with their ranks.

#What kind of script is Persian?

Persian is an Indo-European language, related to English, Hindi and Russian, written in a script borrowed from a Semitic language. After the Arab conquest of Iran in the 7th century, Persian came to be written in the Arabic script, and it has been for more than a thousand years. Iran and Afghanistan (where the language is called Dari) use this script; Tajik, the form of Persian spoken in Tajikistan, is written in Cyrillic.

The script is an abjad: consonants are full letters, and vowels are only partly written. The long vowels have letters. The short vowels have optional marks above and below the line that everyday text leaves out. A Persian reader supplies them from knowing the word, which is why a beginner needs both the letters and some vocabulary.

Because the alphabet came from Arabic, a learner of either language gets a head start on the other. Our Arabic alphabet guide covers the original 28 letters, and our Arabic and Persian word comparison lists common words the two languages share.

#The 32 Persian letters

Here is the full alphabet in Persian order, from our chart. The last column says whether the letter joins the letter that comes after it (to its left). The four letters Persian added are پ, چ, ژ and گ.

The new letters were made by adding dots or a stroke to Arabic ones: پ is ب with three dots, چ is ج with three, ژ is ز with three, and گ is ک with a second stroke. Persian words use them constantly: پدر (pedar, father, #151), چرا (cherâ, why, #35), گربه (gorbe, cat, #712). ژ is the rare one; you’ll meet it in loanwords such as ژاکت (jacket, #2,448).

Two letters also look slightly different from their Arabic versions. Persian writes kaf as ک, where Arabic usually has ك, and Persian ye has no dots at the end of a word (ی), where Arabic ya has two (ي). One word shows the kaf difference:

The word is the same in all three, and so is the spelling, except for the first letter: Persian and Urdu write ک, Arabic ك. Urdu borrowed its alphabet through Persian, and our Persian and Urdu word comparison shows how much vocabulary came with it.

#Letters that share one sound

Arabic has sounds Persian does not, so several letters that are distinct in Arabic are said exactly alike in Persian. For reading this is no problem. For spelling, you learn which letter each word uses.

• z is written four ways. ز is the usual one, as in زن (zan, woman, #163). ذ is in غذا (ghazâ, food, #325), ض in ضعیف (za’if, weak, #2,270), and ظ in ظهر (zohr, noon, #1,086).
• s is written three ways: س in سلام (salâm, hello, #60), ث in ثانیه (sâniye, second, #1,309), ص in صبح (sobh, morning, #198).
• t is written two ways: ت in تو (to, you, #6) and ط in طلا (talâ, gold, #1,099).
• h is written two ways: ه in هوا (havâ, air, #511) and ح in حال (hâl, state, #112). To tell them apart, Persians call ح “he-ye jimi” (the he shaped like jim) and ه “he-ye do-cheshm” (the two-eyed he).

The less common letters in each group (ث ح ذ ص ض ط ظ, and also ع) appear almost only in words borrowed from Arabic, so seeing one is a hint about where the word came from.

Two more letters have merged in the standard Persian of Iran: غ and ق are usually said the same, a sound made far back in the throat that our chart gives as a French r for both. قهوه (ghahve, coffee, #476) and غذا (ghazâ, food) start with the same sound. And ع is a light catch in the throat, or nothing at all: عشق (eshgh, love, #267).

#Joining: why letters change shape

Persian is always written joined up, in print as well as by hand. Most letters connect to the next letter, and a letter’s shape changes depending on whether it stands alone, starts a group, sits in the middle or ends it.

The main pattern is easy: in the middle of a word, most letters shrink to a short shape and the dots do the work. ب, پ, ت and ث share one body and differ only in their dots, as do ج, چ, ح and خ. ه changes the most, so learn its four shapes on purpose.

#The seven letters that never join forward

Seven letters connect to the letter before them but never to the letter after: ا د ذ ر ز ژ و. Arabic has six of them; Persian adds ژ. After one of these, the next letter starts fresh, which leaves little gaps inside a word. That is why دوست (dust, friend, #49) looks like three pieces: د and و each stand alone, then ست is joined. کتاب (ketâb, book, #367) breaks after the alef into کتا and ب.

Persian typing also uses a half-space, an invisible character that stops a join without adding a full space. One common place for it is the verb prefix mi-, written as a separate piece before the verb, as in می‌خواهم (mikhâham, I want). Word lists that split text at spaces see می on its own; ours ranks it #26 and glosses it as wine, a real but much rarer meaning.

#Vowels: three written, three left out

Persian has six vowels. The three long ones have letters:

The three short ones, a (as in cat), e (as in bet) and o (as in more, but short), have optional marks called fathe, kasre and zamme (or zebar, zir and pish), placed above or below the letter. Children’s books, dictionaries and learner materials print them; newspapers, signs and chat messages don’t. So پدر is written p-d-r, and you read pedar because you know the word. دختر (dokhtar, daughter, #128) is d-kh-t-r.

At the start of a word, a short vowel needs a letter to sit on, and that letter is alef: اسم (esm, name, #147), امروز (emruz, today, #121).

Three habits of the vowel letters are worth knowing early:

• و is v at the start of a syllable, u inside a word, and in a few very common words a short o: تو (to, you, #6) and دو (do, two, #69). In the combination خوا it is silent: خواهر (sister, #546) is khâhar.
• ه at the end of a word is usually the vowel e, not h: بچه (bache, child, #46), خانه (khâne, house, #597).
• Written and spoken Persian differ. Our list, which includes a lot of everyday speech, ranks the spoken form خونه (khune, #56) far above the written خانه, and نون (nun, bread, #1,240) above نان (nân, #2,179). In Tehran speech, ân often becomes un.

#The ezafe, briefly

When a Persian noun is followed by an adjective or an owner, the two are linked by a short -e, called the ezafe. دوست خوب is dust-e khub, a good friend (#49 and #36), and کتاب من is ketâb-e man, my book (#367 and #3).

The catch for readers is that after a consonant the ezafe is normally not written. You hear dust-e khub, but the page shows only two words side by side, and you add the -e yourself. After a word that ends in a vowel, it becomes -ye and is written with ی, as in دانشجوی خوب (dâneshju-ye khub, a good student).

#Read your first Persian words

Each of these is on our most common words list.

Start with بابا and مامان: just two or three different letters and no hidden vowels. Then آب, دوست and خوب for the long vowels and a non-joining letter, then شب and مادر, where you supply a short a the page doesn’t show.

#A learning plan for the Persian alphabet

Keep the Persian alphabet chart open while you practice; it lists all 32 letters with their names and sounds. Then move on to vocabulary with the most common Persian words, and when you can read a few hundred, the Persian vocabulary test estimates how many words you know.

Learning another script too? There are guides for Arabic, Hebrew, Georgian, Armenian, Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, Greek, Korean, Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam, or browse all our alphabet charts.

#Practice reading and speaking with native speakers

The alphabet gets you reading, but the unwritten vowels are learned word by word, and the fastest way is to hear real people use them. On LangX, Persian is one of the 182 languages you can choose, and matching runs both ways: you see people who speak Persian and are learning a language you speak.

9:41

Lucía M. Online

Today

Hold any message to correct it — corrections are the most useful thing you can send.

¿Cómo fue tu fin de semana? Cuéntame en inglés si quieres. How was your weekend? Tell me in English if you like. 09:12

Fui a la playa con mi hermana. Hacía mucho calor y yo no llevé agua. 09:14 · Read

Correction from Lucía Hacía mucho calor y yo no llevé agua. Hacía mucho calor y no llevé agua. The «yo» isn't wrong, it just sounds emphatic — like you specifically forgot. 09:15

Message in Spanish…

Write in the Persian script from your first message, even a سلام, and let your partner hold a message to correct it. Corrections and replies are unlimited on every plan, and translation is built into the chat (20 a day on the free plan, which also includes 5 new conversations a day). LangX has voice and photo messages rather than live calls, so you can record a word until you are happy with it. To start, get the app, and read how to do a language exchange before your first chat.

#FAQ

#How many letters are in the Persian alphabet?

Thirty-two: the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet plus four Persian additions, پ (p), چ (ch), ژ (zh) and گ (g).

#Is the Persian alphabet the same as the Arabic alphabet?

Almost. Persian uses the Arabic script with four extra letters, writes kaf and ye in slightly different shapes, and says several Arabic letters alike: ز ذ ض ظ are all z, and س ث ص are all s. See our Arabic alphabet guide for the original 28.

#Are vowels written in Persian?

The long vowels â, i and u are written with ا, ی and و. The short vowels a, e and o have optional marks that everyday text leaves out, so you learn them with each word.

#Which Persian letters don’t connect?

Seven: ا, د, ذ, ر, ز, ژ and و. They join the letter before them but never the letter after, which is why some Persian words look broken into pieces.

#What is the ezafe in Persian?

A short -e that links a noun to an adjective or an owner, as in dust-e khub (good friend). After a consonant it is usually not written; after a vowel it becomes -ye and is written with ی.