How many letters does the Persian alphabet have?

Thirty-two: the 28 Arabic letters plus پ (p), چ (ch), ژ (zh), and گ (g). Persian has no capital letters, and short vowels are usually left unwritten.

How long does it take to learn the Persian alphabet?

With shape families and daily practice, most learners recognise all the letters within two to three weeks. Comfortable reading speed builds over the following months as vocabulary grows.

Is the Persian alphabet the same as Arabic?

It uses the same base script with four additional letters, and several letters are pronounced differently. The languages themselves are unrelated: Persian is Indo-European, closer in structure to English than to Arabic.

ReadingUpdated 2026-07-10

Learn the Persian alphabet without the overwhelm

Thirty-two letters, written right to left, that join together and change shape. It looks like a wall. Taken in the right order, it is about two weeks of pleasant work.

What you are actually dealing with

The Persian alphabet has 32 letters, written from right to left. It is based on the Arabic script with four extra letters for sounds Arabic does not have: پ (p), چ (ch), ژ (zh), and گ (g). There are no capital letters, and short vowels are usually not written at all, which is why you cannot simply sound out a new word on day one. Context fills the vowels in, and surprisingly quickly.

Why letters change shape, and why it is fine

Persian is joined-up writing by design. Most letters have up to four forms depending on whether they sit at the start, middle, or end of a word, or stand alone. That sounds like 128 things to memorise. In practice each letter keeps its skeleton and adjusts its tails, the way an English handwritten letter does. Learn the skeleton and the four forms come almost free.

The method: shape families, sound, then tracing

Do not learn the letters in dictionary order. Learn them in shape families. ب پ ت ث share one skeleton and differ only in dots. Group them, and 32 letters collapse into roughly a dozen shapes. For each family: hear the sound, read the letter in a real word, then write it. Writing is the step most learners skip and the one that makes recognition stick, because your hand learns the skeleton your eyes keep confusing.

How the app teaches it

Learn Farsi: Real Persian has a dedicated alphabet course: every letter with native speaker audio, and stroke-by-stroke handwriting practice on your touchscreen. You trace each letter with guided stroke order, then build up from letters to whole Persian words, plus the numbers. Because the app teaches spoken Farsi first, by the time you reach the alphabet you are decoding words you already know by ear, which is far easier than reading cold.

Your first week of reading

By the end of week one you can realistically read سلام (salām), آب (āb, water), and your own name in Persian letters. That first decoded word is a genuine thrill, and it arrives sooner than you expect. For a letter-by-letter reference, see the full Persian alphabet article.