masa' alkhayr
good eveningThe word, broken down.
مَساء اَلْخَيْر reads right to left. Below, in reading order, each letter — its sound, its shape, its place in the syllable.
A plain 'm'. A small round head with a tail.
A short 'a' — a small stroke written above the letter.
A plain 's'. Three small teeth in a row.
A long 'a' vowel — a single upright stroke, and the first letter of the alphabet.
A glottal stop — the catch in the middle of 'uh-oh'.
A long 'a' vowel — a single upright stroke, and the first letter of the alphabet.
A short 'a' — a small stroke written above the letter.
A plain 'l' — a tall upright stroke with a curved foot.
The throaty 'kh' — like the 'ch' in Bach or the Scottish 'loch'.
A short 'a' — a small stroke written above the letter.
A 'y' — or a long 'i' vowel when it carries no vowel of its own.
A rolled 'r' — closer to Spanish than English.
The keystrokes, in order.
On a standard Arabic 101 / Arabic-PC layout — 15 key presses. Diacritics sit on the Shift keys. The on-screen keyboard on this site highlights each key as you go.
Practice typing this word →- 01L→م
- 02Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 03S→س
- 04H→ا
- 05X→ء
- 06Space→
- 07H→ا
- 08Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 09G→ل
- 10Shift+X→ـْ
- 11O→خ
- 12Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 13D→ي
- 14Shift+X→ـْ
- 15V→ر