There’s something rotten in the state of Urdu (learning)

And how we are fixing it

Learning Urdu today is harder than it needs to be.

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.