UPDATES

Quite a few things in the background but you should know:

1. NEW STORY

The Redemption (25 min) - Intermediate story adapted from the inspiring and very very readable autobiographical Hadith about Kaab bin Malik RA.

Kaab bin Malik RA can take the easy way out: make up an excuse, any excuse, and save face. Just like 80 others. Or... he could tell the truth.

The original hadith is written in very approachable Urdu. You don’t have to be Muslim or religious to appreciate a good story. And this one? This one is excellent.

Let me tell you how good it is. I read this story when I was pretty young and it, well, left quite the impression. I decided when I was literally 13 that I would name my son Kaab. And, I did. (Thankfully my wife loved the name too!)

Read the story here.

2. DICTIONARY

Now, you can double tap on words you don’t get to look up their meaning. Thank you to the people who shared this feedback with us!

3. HOW TO USE

We made a short guide to use Karak! Check it out here: quick start guide.

WHAT WE LEARNED:

While all stories stories were well-received, two stories were by far the most popular.

• Mango Season: everyone loves an easy, slice of (mango) life story

• The Rishta Chronicles 01: everyone LOVES listening to shaadi drama

People - don’t be scared of ‘advanced’ or ‘native’ tags for Learning French (Frenchnama) and Toba Tek Singh. Like for everything else - there is sentence by sentence translation AND word lookup AND integrated audio! Just read. You’ll be shocked how easy it gets. And on that note….

We also got some nice compliments. Our favourite one was:

“I’m surprised how much faster I can read
This is working??? Well done!”

OTHER

More stories coming up! There’s a horror story, a classic of Urdu comedy, and some more rishta shenanigans in the works. But please - tell us what you’d like to see, read, and / or listen to!

BOHAT BOHAT SHUKRIA

We're inviting the first round of early testers to try the Karak beta.

This version is still in progress but it's already helping people read, listen, and enjoy Urdu with more ease.

What's available right now:

• Four bilingual stories, each with carefully crafted translation

• Over 40 chapters and 13,000 words of curated Urdu content

• More than 120 minutes of audio, with easy speed up or slow down options

• Sentence-by-sentence and paragraph-by-paragraph display modes

• Nastaliq, Naskh, and Devanagari script options

Sneak peak: Our first four stories (direct links below!)

1. Mango Season (10 min) -
   Upper beginner slice-of-life story about a boy’s mango obsession
   Ali can hear the mango man in the street. Will today be the day he gets some mangoes?

2. The Rishta Chronicles 01 (25 min) -
   Intermediate comedy about arranged marriage meetings
   Ah, to be single and ready to get mingled. Follow a young bachelor’s trials and tribulations as he tries to get married the arranged way.

3. Learning French (Frenchnama) (35 min) -
   Advanced meta-story about learning French as an Urdu speaker
   Learning French is easy, they said. Learning French is fun, they said. Learning French is worth it, they said. Is it?

4. Toba Tek Singh (25 min) - Native
   Intermediate classic, perhaps Manto’s most famous short story.
   Set in the immediate aftermath of independence. Partition means everyone must pick a side, including all the lunatics in mental asylums. That includes Bishan Singh.

We’re still building, and your feedback can help us get it right. By trying it out and sharing your ideas, you’ll be helping create something that could open new doors for Urdu learners, heritage speakers, and anyone who loves the language.

To join the beta, visit: LINK.

Thanks for being here! And thanks for helping us build something better for Urdu.

Ok, this is coming from me trying to help my niblings learn Urdu (they grew up outside Pakistan) as well as the many language exchange partners I’ve met over the years while exchanging Urdu for French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, and Turkish.

Learners were, on the whole, pretty excited to learn Urdu. They were less excited about the resources available.

It is sad how few resources we have for people who want to learn Urdu. Yes, there are some nice courses, great tutors, and an abundance of people willing to teach Urdu for free. But resources that help learners move from baby steps to running full tilt into Urdu literature and dramas and real life? Few.

Here’s what many learners face (a true nazuk surat-e-haal):

• Almost no level-appropriate reading material to start with

• No clear way to study independently or track your progress

• Heavy reliance on tutors (often affordable, but hard to schedule)

• Hard to read digital Urdu: clunky fonts, poor formatting, constant zooming

• Scanned PDFs that are hard on the eyes and harder on motivation

• A wide gap between beginner resources and authentic native content

• Very few materials that offer pronunciation support, whether through audio, diacritics, or script options

We think there's a better way.

We're building a bridge that helps you grow your reading, vocabulary, and listening skills naturally, at your own pace.

Here's how we're doing it:

Read better

• Graded bilingual stories, designed specifically for learners

• Curated Urdu classics, made approachable

• Clean, modern Urdu in Nastaliq, Naskh, and Devanagari

• Sentence-by-sentence or paragraph-by-paragraph display

• Tap any sentence for a simple, human-written translation

• Long tap (or Cmd/Ctrl-click) any word for a quick dictionary lookup

• Responsive design with crisp, scalable Urdu: no PDFs, no blurry scans

Understand better

• Switch scripts or fonts instantly to match your comfort

• Stories grouped by level, so you can steadily build fluency

Hear better

• Professional narration, so you can hear exactly how a word sounds

• Synced audio and text, so you can read and listen together

Learn better

All of this is designed to help you build confidence, speed, and joy in Urdu. All this without needing a tutor, a textbook, or ten tabs open.

Beta launch is just around the corner (Inshallah!). If you'd like early access, subscribe below.

Subscribe now

Urdu is beautiful, expressive, and so very learnable, but people are having a tough time learning it. Or improving it. And they really shouldn’t! Urdu is so much easier than actually tough languages. But we lack the breadth of resources of, say, Chinese. Not saying people haven’t developed good stuff, they have. But there’s no easy way to learn independently, on your own time, and engage with native material in a way you feel supported, scaffolded by context and help a tap away.

Especially for reading.

Reading is the most effective way to learn a language. You pick up grammar and vocabulary naturally, on your own schedule. Pair it with native audio and you train your ear, pronunciation, and rhythm. Add instant translations and context, and you’ll never get stuck. You can engage with Urdu confidently, on your own terms. Whenever, wherever.

That’s what we’re building.

Who gave you the right?

We’re a small team of Urdu lovers, native speakers and learners, with direct experience in improving our own Urdu, helping others do the same, and reaching fluency in multiple other languages through context-first methods.

We’re here to build something that makes Urdu accessible and joyful to engage with. Whether you’re just starting out or reconnecting after years away. We got you. (Inshallah).

Subscribe to hear when we launch (our beta, IA very soon) and help shape a new way to learn and improve Urdu.

Subscribe now