The next four-pack of letters are called "jim", "che", "he" and "xe". The word "jim" is pronounced with a long ee sound like "jeem." The "e" here (in che, he, xe), as always, is a crisp short "e" as in "check" and "Hello."

The letter "he" is sometimes called "he jimi" (the jim he) to distinguish it from the other h, "he do cheshm" (the H with two eyes) (see "redundant letters").

The "xe" is a strong guttural sound that doesn't occur in the English language. Some people will transliterate this sound as "kh." We prefer "x". The sound is similar to the "ch" sound in the German "ich" or the Scottish "loch" or composer Johan S. Bach.

Jim and his brothers all have a cool sleek shape, like a wave or the prow of a ship or a dragon or sea-horse.

In Persian cursive, this shape has four forms when written. Here are the forms as demonstrated by the letter "jim" (the other letters use the same form, just the dots are different. One day, we will show them all. For now, we are under construction).

Below are the four forms of "jim" as they appear in some words. "jim" is highlighted in red:

And here are those same words in magnetic word tile form (remember, read words Right to Left):

One more thing you need to know about this shape of letter: In writing, to maintain the line of cursive, sometimes you don't lift the pen to make the medial or final form of the letter. Instead you simply draw a zigzag in the line. The only thing that zigzag can be is one of these letters. This effect can be seen in typing as well, since the keyboard interprets two letters together and creates a new character (a ligature) that represents these two letters.

Here is an example in the word "mohit" which means environment. We will show it both with the ligature and without. Notice the letter "m" also changes.

And finally, we take the four "jim" shaped letters and make a sentence using four words that start with the letters of this group in order (jim-che-he-xe). Say it once, read the sentence, then say it again (remember, the sentence goes right to left)!

jim-che-he-xe
ja'far cherA hAlA xAb ast?

You know, with colloquial pronounciation, you don't have to say the whole "ast" at the end, you can just shorten it to an "eh" tacked on to the word xAb:

jim-che-he-xe ja'far cherA hAlA xAbeh? jim-che-he-xe

See how easy that is? Just memorize the poem, look at the letters and recite it, look back at the magnet tile sentence, back at the letters. They are now friends with your eyes. Your mind is mapping them. The pattern is etching into your consciousness.