afham
I understandThe word, broken down.
أَفْهَم reads right to left. Below, each letter in reading order, with its sound and the keys that type it.
A glottal stop carried on an alif.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'f'. One dot above a small loop.
A soft 'h', as in the English word 'hat'.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'm'. A small round head with a tail.
What does afham mean in Arabizi?
afham is how you write أَفْهَم in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “I understand”. No numbers in this one; it spells out in plain Latin letters.
New to the chat alphabet? See how every letter and number maps: the Arabizi → Arabic guide. Got it the other way round, with Arabic script to convert? That is the Arabic to Arabizi converter.
The keystrokes, in order.
On a standard Arabic 101 / Arabic-PC layout — 7 key presses. Diacritics sit on the Shift keys. The on-screen keyboard on this site highlights each key as you go.
It sits in the daily routine lesson of our Arabic typing practice course, if you would rather drill it next to the words it turns up with.
Practice typing this word →- 01Shift+H→أ
- 02Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 03T→ف
- 04Shift+X→ـْ
- 05I→ه
- 06Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 07L→م
Getting the sounds right.
AF-ham. Two syllables, stress on the first. English never puts an h right after an f, so the tongue wants to skip it and say "afam". Don't. Finish the f, then breathe out a light h before the second a.
Example sentences.
Sentences using أَفْهَم, with diacritics so the rhythm is unambiguous.
The present tense.
An Arabic verb changes with whoever is doing it. The row for this page is marked.
The phrase most learners need first is la afham, “I don't understand”. Put لا in front and you're done. In conversation you'll also hear ana fahim (أنا فاهِم), “I get it”, and in Egypt mish fahim for the opposite.