Uzbekistan had 30 foreign universities at the start of the 2024/25 academic year, and the number of foreign citizens arriving to study rose 54.3% in January to November 2025 (National Statistics Committee). If you are one of them and you study medicine, your lectures may be in English. Almost nothing else will be. This page is a plan for the Uzbek you need, in the order you will need it.
Key points
- You need Uzbek in two places: daily life from the first day, and hospital rotations later. Start with daily life, because it is where you get practice.
- Learn politeness before vocabulary. With patients, elders and staff you always use siz, the polite “you”.
- Tourist courses stop at the bazaar. You need questions, the past tense and the word kerak (“is needed”), which phrase lists do not teach.
- If you speak Hindi or Urdu, the word order is already yours.
Which language is the course in?
Check your own programme in writing, because the answer differs between universities and has changed recently:
- Samarkand State Medical University says in its FAQ that teaching is carried out in Uzbek, Russian and English. Its admission interview for foreign applicants is in the language of instruction, given as Russian or English.
- Tashkent State Medical University, which absorbed the Tashkent Medical Academy, announced on 14 August 2025 that it would take applications for English-language programmes for international students. The older Tashkent Medical Academy admissions FAQ still says training is in Uzbek and Russian.
- Bukhara State Medical Institute interviews foreign applicants in the language of instruction, given as Russian or English.
For Indian students, the National Medical Commission requires English as the medium of instruction for its foreign medical graduate licence. Its alert note on Uzbekistan of 1 April 2026 reports a concern from the Embassy of India in Tashkent that Indian students were not receiving hands-on training because of lack of communication. The Embassy later called the alert precautionary and not a ban (Medical Dialogues, 10 August 2026). Whatever language your lectures are in, on the ward you talk to patients, and Uzbek is the state language.
The Uzbek for each part of your training
Each page is one situation, with the phrases, their pronunciation and one piece of grammar.
On the ward - Taking a patient history: the doctor’s questions and qachondan beri? (since when?). - Examining a patient: “breathe in”, “lie down”, “open your mouth”, and the polite command -ing. - Body parts and where it hurts: head to toe, and boshim ogʻriyapti (my head hurts). - On the ward: staff, rounds and shifts. - Medicines and doses: kuniga uch mahal, ovqatdan keyin (three times a day, after meals). - The doctor and the pharmacy: the same visit from the patient’s side.
At the university and the hostel - At the university: the dean’s office, the timetable and exams. - The student hostel: roommates, the warden and the kitchen.
Daily life - Greetings, introducing yourself, numbers, the bazaar and taxis.
If you speak Hindi or Urdu - Uzbek and Hindi: the words you already know, and the few that mean something else.
Where you will actually use Uzbek
The dormitory and the canteen. The guard, the cleaner, the cook and the person at the till. These are short, repeated exchanges, which makes them the best practice you will get.
The bazaar, the taxi and the pharmacy. Prices, weights and directions. Dorixona is a pharmacy: the ending -xona means a room or place, as in oshxona (kitchen) and choyxona (teahouse).
The ward. On rotations the patient in front of you may speak only Uzbek, and older patients most of all. You will not be taking a full history in Uzbek in your first year. You can greet properly, introduce yourself, ask simple questions and show respect, and that changes how the conversation goes.
Week 1: greet everyone properly
Learn Assalomu alaykum and its reply Va alaykum assalom, then Yaxshimisiz? and the answer Yaxshi, rahmat. Saying a plain Salom to an older person or an official is too casual. The greetings page has the full set, and how to say how are you explains why people ask it two or three times in a row.
Learn forms of address at the same time. Older men are aka and older women are opa, after the first name or alone. Elderly people are addressed as ota, ona, bobo or buvi. Sen, the familiar “you”, is for children and close friends only. Details are on the brother and sister page.
Then the sentences about you, from introducing yourself:
- Men talabaman. I am a student.
- Men Hindistondanman. I am from India.
- Men oʻzbekcha oʻrganyapman. I am learning Uzbek.
- Sekinroq gapiring, iltimos. Please speak more slowly.
- Tushunmadim. I did not understand.
Month 1: daily life
Add numbers, because prices are said in thousands of soʻm and you will hear ming all day. Add the bazaar and taxi pages. Three small words do a lot of work:
- bor and yoʻq: there is, there is not. Chegirma bormi? Is there a discount?
- kerak: is needed. Name the thing and add it: Suv kerak, taksi kerak, Shifokor kerak (I need a doctor). See how to say help.
- qayerda: where. Hojatxona qayerda? The same pattern finds anything.
By the end of the month you should be at or near A1. The realistic range with fifteen minutes a day is four to eight weeks.
Months 2 to 4: the grammar a clinic needs
Phrase lists run out here. To ask a patient anything you need three pieces of grammar, all regular:
- Yes/no questions with -mi. Yaxshimisiz? is yaxshi + -mi + -siz. The same -mi turns any statement into a question: Tushundingizmi? Did you understand?
- The past tense with -di. keldim (I came), keldingiz (you came). Most questions to a patient are about what has already happened.
- Polite requests with -ing. kuting (wait), bering (give), gapiring (speak). Drop the ending and you are talking to a child.
Alongside the grammar, build your own word lists by category: parts of the body, common symptoms, time expressions (bugun, kecha, ertaga: today, yesterday, tomorrow), numbers for ages and dates, and simple instructions. The ward pages above (body parts, taking a history, examining, medicines) give plain, polite phrases, not a clinical glossary, and they have not yet been read by a clinician: check every term with your university’s language classes and the staff on your ward. A wrong word learned from a website is worse than no word.
A semester of steady work puts most learners around A2: simple conversations about daily life. Following a real clinic conversation is a B2 skill, which for most people takes one and a half to two and a half years. That is the reason to start in the first semester and not in the year rotations begin.
How this differs from learning for travel
A traveller needs to be understood once. You need to be understood by the same people every day for years, and to be trusted by patients. That means politeness forms first, grammar that lets you form your own questions, listening practice at natural speed, and vocabulary from your own field. It also means reading: signs, forms and notices are in the Latin script, which is phonetic, so you can read it from day one.
If you speak Hindi or Urdu
Uzbek puts the verb last, as you do: Men choy ichaman is “I tea drink”. Suffixes do the job of your postpositions. You will recognise words such as kitob, dunyo, vaqt, doʻst and shahar: see Uzbek and Hindi: the words you already know, including the few that mean something else. Your work is vocabulary and the specific suffix forms, not a new way of building sentences. There is more in Is Uzbek hard to learn?.
Where Uzbekcha fits
Uzbekcha is an app we make. It is on Android through Google Play as a paid subscription, and coming soon to iPhone. It teaches lessons in English (other lesson languages are planned), built around your reason for learning, with study as one of them. It does not teach clinical Uzbek. The free phrasebook also covers the first month of this plan.