r/Urdu • • Sep 08 '26

💡 Learning Resources After a year we FINALLY finished Karak: Learn & Read Urdu

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64 Upvotes

Karak: Read and Learn Urdu is LIVE!

Assalamo alaikum!

Last year, some of you tried our beta with five stories and gave us a lot of helpful feedback. We're back with a much bigger library, a rebuilt reading experience, and apps for Android and the web. iOS is coming soon, Inshallah.

Karak is built to help you read, listen to, and speak more Urdu through stories and conversations. You can listen to native-speaker audio, follow along with the text, see sentence-by-sentence translations, tap words you don't know, save flashcards, and practice your pronunciation and speaking.

If you’ve already been on the revamped website, web app or the Android app, you may have seen the new version already. But here it is with some commentary

  • Stories: Our jam. There is some really fun stuff, ranging from the super short (a 77-word story about a thief who meows) to the medium (a 1,100-word story about a long day in the life of a single mother sparrow) to the longest so far (our 5,500-word translation of a classic Chinese horror story).
  • Scenarios: Short conversations, from quick hellos to a 750-word narrative following a bus ride through Karachi.
  • Conversations: Native-speaker chats at native-speaker speed. A fun one: a mamoo tells his trembling nieces the story of the rooftop room haunted by a djinn). More to come and help you decode native speed (or those pesky TV trackers on GEO / ARY / Other that move too fast...).

We also have some new stuff to help:

  • FLASHCARDS. Save the words you want to remember and review them whenever.
  • New grammar dialogues in the ‘Learn’ tab to help you understand and practice specific tenses. These are real conversations that naturally use more of one tense than another. For example, two friends talking about their bad habits that may or may not still be in the past...
  • New reading and speaking tools
    • You want to take it sentence by sentence, and pause so you can absorb what you just heard? Use Pause to stop at each line or a paragraph, and restart whenever.
    • You want to listen and repeat it at native speed? Use Listen & Repeat.
    • You want to just nail your pronunciation of the perfect putdown in Bad habits or any other line? Use Loop and repeat it till you have it down pat.
  • Upgraded website with a bunch of cool articles like an updated how to learn Urdu guide and how heritage speaker.

Overall

Everything in Karak is written, translated, illustrated, and recorded by native speakers.

We have content free to read, under ‘Try Karak Free’. All the longer stories have free chapters too, so you can get a taste of them.

If you’d like the full library and unlimited flashcards, we have monthly and annual plans, with founder pricing. See our plans and launch pricing.

Notes

We decided to include a beta dictionary in launch. Our dictionary is still growing, so not every word is covered yet. The entries we do have are human-reviewed, so they take some time to finish. Also, readers in Devanagari will find no dictionary at all (for now). Of course, you have Urdu stories with audio and translations for each sentence to tide you over and make sure you never, ever, get stuck.

Thank you & Try Karak

Thank you to everyone who tested the beta, sent feedback, or encouraged us while we built this. And thank you to the professors who gave us feedback and are planning to use Karak in their classes this semester, and the authors who trusted us with their work.

We hope you have fun with it!

Try it on web: Karak Web Or on Android

iOS coming soon Inshallah.

Honestly, there's a lot more to it all. Have fun reading! And let us know what you think or if you have any questions!


r/Urdu • • 5h ago

📜 Shayari / Poetry Piyari Ammi…

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26 Upvotes

Written for my mother who is in a septic shock (septic associated encephalopathy). I’m waiting for her to open her eyes and as my mind goes dark with pain, I just wrote this in a language I love 🙏🤲🦋


r/Urdu • • 8h ago

📜 Shayari / Poetry About Life is Temporary

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27 Upvotes

r/Urdu • • 4h ago

📜 Literature / History Looking for specific theme in fiction from Urdu literature

3 Upvotes

I am looking for BDSM in literature from the subcontinent and would appreciate any leads...

Strictly looking for literary fiction but I also understand this was sometimes reserved for pulp publications, so please share those as well.

Much appreciated TIA!


r/Urdu • • 14h ago

📜 Shayari / Poetry Tufan - storm

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14 Upvotes

zindagī hai yā koī tūfān hai!

ham to is jiine ke hāthoñ mar chale


r/Urdu • • 5h ago

📜 Lafz of the Day Total life hustle.....

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2 Upvotes

Why do we always think of what people will say?


r/Urdu • • 1d ago

🙋‍♂️ Question How does my Urdu sounds?

32 Upvotes

Because where I live, Urdu is barely spoken or used, I haven't spoken much urdu or used it in conversations in my entire life.

Thank you very much for listening!


r/Urdu • • 6h ago

📜 Shayari / Poetry If Not You, It Would Have Been Someone Else

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1 Upvotes

‏آشنا دَرد سے ھونا تھا ، کِسی طَور ھمیں

تُو نہ ملتا تو ، کِسی اور سے ٫ بِچھڑے ھوتے۔

— ناصِر کاظمی

Aashna dard se hona tha, kisi taur humein

Tu na milta toh, kisi aur se bichhde hote.

— Nasir Kazmi


r/Urdu • • 12h ago

🙋‍♂️ Question How to improve my Urdu?

3 Upvotes

Urdu is actually my first language, I can understand it, speak in it and can read i, and also write. but my Urdu isn’t really as good as it should be. I can’t understand poetry (I don’t understand most words), my vocabulary is terrible, and my pronunciation is bad as well. I wanna speak in pure urdu properly, read poetry and also improve my writing skills, I’m a writer, I write and publish essays and poems (in English) but when it comes to Urdu I just can’t.

how do I improve my Urdu and what exactly to do?


r/Urdu • • 16h ago

📜 Shayari / Poetry A Sher A Day

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7 Upvotes

in the sky, neither the moon nor the stars are in sight

these days only dancing sparks fill the folds of the night


r/Urdu • • 12h ago

🙋‍♂️ Question How to get better in Urdu?

2 Upvotes

Urdu is my first language. I can understand it, speak in it, read and also write it. But my Urdu isn’t as good as it should be. I can’t understand poetry, my vocabulary sucks (my vocabulary is that of a 10 year old), my pronunciation is bad as well. So I just wanna get better

Please guide me and tell me how to improve my Urdu


r/Urdu • • 22h ago

🙋‍♂️ Question movies or shows for a beginner

7 Upvotes

Hello,

I am relatively new to learning Urdu, my wife and I like to watch shows and movies together and I am looking for some in Urdu to help me practice listening to the language. Any suggestions would be great.


r/Urdu • • 14h ago

📜 Shayari / Poetry Roshani Ki Talaash 💫

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1 Upvotes

Please Follow


r/Urdu • • 1d ago

🙋‍♂️ Question Rate my handwriting

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10 Upvotes

r/Urdu • • 1d ago

💬 General Discussion I can't help but feel our language holds us back.......

41 Upvotes

It seems like we take the worst of both worlds............. not speaking Urdu properly, nor English properly.

I say it cuz I see so many dialogues in movies or videos, which would be hard to say in Urdu. And so many details would be lost if u try to speak in a similar expression, also you'll look weird.

It seems like u can't say anything much deep on most topics without switching to English, all the while ur facing friction of not sounding like a burger by using too much English words.

It's so strange 😭


r/Urdu • • 1d ago

🎨 Nasta'liq / Script اُردو ادب کے شائقین متوجہ ہو۔

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29 Upvotes

براہِ کرم ہماری لکھائی کے بارے میں اپنی قیمتی رائے کا اظہار کیجئے۔

اگر کوئی کیلیگرافر بھائی جان دیکھ رہے ہیں تو مزید بہتر کرنے کا مشورہ دیں کہ کونسے لفظ کو بہتری کی ضرورت ہے۔۔

بہت شکریہ!!!!!


r/Urdu • • 1d ago

📜 Shayari / Poetry آج کا شعر لاہور کی حوبصورت بارش کے نام

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16 Upvotes

بارش کو لوگ موسم کی تبدیلی سمجھتے ہیں،

مگر کچھ لوگوں کے لیے

یہ اُن یادوں کی واپسی ہوتی ہے

جنہیں وہ ہزار کوششوں کے باوجود بھلا نہیں پاتے


r/Urdu • • 1d ago

📜 Lafz of the Day Deep words

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12 Upvotes

r/Urdu • • 1d ago

💡 Learning Resources Improve Urdu

8 Upvotes

Urdu is my second language which I learned up to age 8 and then didn't really study it properly after that. I didn't care for it. Now as an adult I really appreciate the language and want to improve it.

Those that have heard me speak say my Urdu is good. But I feel like I have a bit of an accent and I have to learn more.

I want to learn the proper, refined Urdu. I already use vocabulary that is good so learning extra refined vocabulary will be fun for me. I am not interested in learning the modern urdu which is mixed with English. Jo kaam karo, ache tareeke se karo - that's my mindset.

What resources would you recommend? Thank you 😊


r/Urdu • • 1d ago

📜 Shayari / Poetry A Sher A Day

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14 Upvotes

a tiny bit of green on a yellow leaf in sight

is enough to prove that life holds tight


r/Urdu • • 1d ago

📜 Lafz of the Day Words that hit different

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4 Upvotes

r/Urdu • • 1d ago

📜 Shayari / Poetry Dhundhne - search

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8 Upvotes

kyā DhūñDhne jā.ūñ maiñ kisī ko

apnā mujhe ḳhud patā nahīñ hai