Arabic typing practice for beginners

A drill you can do on day one. Every word below is typed on the home row of the Arabic keyboard, so there are eleven keys to learn and nothing to reach for. Rest your fingers on the middle row, watch the onscreen keyboard, and go slowly. There are 95 of these words in our vocabulary and the session cycles through them eight at a time.

Greetings & introductions

what · Adverb

م‍‍ا

Tap the field above and type with your phone's keyboard. For real Arabic letters, add your device's Arabic keyboard — iPhone or Android.

Hint above each key = its English equivalent on the Arabic 101 layout.Layout reference →

This session

makummanibnmumillbikamlastakutub

Words you've stumbled on

None yet — keep going. We'll surface words you miss more often.

Eleven keys, and seven of them are letters you use constantly.

On the Arabic 101 layout, the row your fingers rest on reads like this from left to right. The small label is the key on a Latin keyboard. Notice ا ل ي ب ن ت م are all here: between them they cover a big share of any Arabic sentence, which is why a home-row-only drill gets you further than it sounds.

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Some of what you can type without moving: ما (what), اِسْم (name), بِنْت (a girl), كِتاب (a book), سَمَك (fish), بَيت (house). All of it is vocabulary you'll use, so the reps teach you words while they teach you keys.

Where this drill fits.

Ten minutes a day is plenty. The order matters more than the amount, because each step assumes the one before it.

Days one and two: this page

Run the home-row session two or three times a day. Look at your hands as much as you want. The aim by the end of day two is to type بِنْت and كِتاب without glancing at the onscreen keyboard.

Day three: the rest of the letters

The alphabet set spells names out letter by letter, so it walks you across the top and bottom rows with nothing to translate. Expect it to feel slow again. That's the reaches, and they settle.

Day four: hamza

أ is Shift and H, and a plain ا is marked wrong where the word wants the hamza. Ten minutes on أَخ, أُخْت and أَنا and the Shift stops feeling like an interruption.

Day five onward: the beginner level

The beginner level is every single word of four letters or fewer on the site, from all sixteen topics. Stay there until a session stops feeling like a puzzle, then move up to intermediate.

The whole plan, with the sixteen lessons in order, is on the Arabic typing practice hub. And once you can get through a session without hunting, take the typing speed test to get a first number to beat.

Add the Arabic layout early.

The onscreen keyboard means you can start right now, but fingers learn positions rather than pictures, and the sooner you type on the real layout the sooner it sticks. Adding Arabic takes a couple of minutes on Windows, Mac, iPhone or Android. No stickers needed. The keys are printed with Arabic 101 on nearly every Arabic keyboard sold, and it's the layout every session here uses.

Beginner questions.

I have never typed Arabic. Is this really where I start?

Yes. Every word in this drill sits on the home row of the Arabic 101 layout, so your fingers never have to leave their resting position. You learn eleven keys and can already type real words with them. The alphabet set and the beginner level come after, once those eleven feel automatic.

Do I need an Arabic keyboard?

No. Type on whatever keyboard you have and the letters are remapped through the Arabic 101 layout: F sends ب, H sends ا, K sends ن. The onscreen keyboard under the word shows you the key to reach for. On a phone, tap the card and your phone's own Arabic keyboard comes up.

Why does the drill show vowel marks I am not typing?

The words are shown with their harakat because that's how you learn to read them, but you only type the base letters. The marks fill themselves in. Outside this site almost nothing is written with them anyway.

How long should a beginner session be?

Eight words, about two minutes. Do it twice a day for a week rather than once for an hour. Typing is a motor habit, and habits respond to how often you come back, not how long you stay.

What comes after the home row?

The alphabet set, which spells names letter by letter across the whole keyboard, then the beginner level: hundreds of single words of four letters or fewer from every topic on the site. By the end of that, intermediate is a small step.