The Talking Uzbek Phrasebook

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Below, you will find several useful phrases and words. To the left is the English and to the far right is the Uzbek translation. Uzbek is currently transitioning from the Cyrillic script to Latin. While Cyrillic is common in Uzbekistan, Latin is the official script.

In the center column for each row is a play button. The recorded file will feature first English, then the Uzbek in three versions: one slow, one with each syllable broken out, and a last version that will be spoken as it might be overheard in a conversation between native speakers. (Except in “Counting,” whose audio files have been grouped into three sets.)

Interested in learning more about Uzbek culture? Access our full Uzbek archives here.

Interesting Facts about Uzbek

1. There is no grammatical gender in Uzbek. The adjective “u” can fill in for “he,” “she,” and “it.”
2. Uzbek has six noun cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, and ablative. Ablative is most common in Turkic and Turkic-influenced languages and most commonly denotes movement away from something else.
3. Uzbek, like many Turkic languages, use subject-object-verb order. If English used this same rule, you would need to say, for example, “I Uzbek learn.”
4. Uzbek can use complex suffix strings for example, the word “kel­d­i­mizmi” is effectively a full sentence meaning “Have we arrived.” “Kel” is the root while “di” indicates past tense, “miz” applies it to “we,” and “mi” indicates that a question is being communicated.
5. Uzbek uses postpostions rather than prepositions. If English used these, you would need to say, for example, “I live America in.”
6. Because the Persian Empire once ruled much of Central Asia, Uzbek has strong Persian influences. However, it still shares a relatively high degree of mutual intelligibility with many other Turkic languages such as Turkmen and Kazakh.
7. Uzbekistan is by far Central Asia’s most populous country, with about 35 million people and growing. There are also large populations of ethnic Uzbeks outside of Uzbekistan. The vast majority of these people are native Uzbek speakers. Altogether, there are about 44 million people who speak Uzbek as a first language worldwide.
8. In part because Uzbekistan was once part of larger empires spreading to the south, including the Iran-based Persian, the India-centered Mughal, and the home-grown Timurid Empires, there are still about 4.5 million Uzbek speakers in northern Afghanistan, where it is an official language, about 300,000 in Pakistan, and about one million in western Kyrgyzstan, concentrated around the city of Osh.
9. Uzbekistan was once part of the Russian empire and the USSR and retains strong commercial and diplomatic ties with Russia. Most Uzbeks can speak Russian and Russian is a mandatory subject in public schools. As of 2021, there were about 5 million ethnic Uzbeks working as guest laborers in Russia.

Unique Characters and Sounds in Uzbek

Modern Uzbek uses a Latin alphabet that very closely resembles English, including in its use of diagraphs such as ch and sh, which make the same sounds as in English. However, several unique letters and modified characters (especially those involving apostrophes) represent sounds not found—or pronounced differently from English.

One of the most unique sounds in Uzbek is g’. It’s also relatively rare in the language. It is pronounced similar to how the French pronounce the “r” in “Paris.” Think of pronouncing “g,” but do not let the tongue touch the top of the mouth. The result should be something like nasal, raspy “r.”

The table below explains more of Uzbek’s unique sounds briefly.

Survival Basics for Uzbek

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Introductions in Uzbek

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*Note that the same form is used for both sexes.

Asking Directions

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More About the Uzbek

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The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Below, you will find several useful phrases and words. To the left is the English and to the far right is the Uzbek translation. Uzbek is currently transitioning […]

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The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Below, you will find several useful phrases and words. To the left is the English and to the above right is an English transliteration of the Kyrgyz translation. […]

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