arabictyper
The word
شَيْء

shay'

thing, anything, a thing, Something
Arabicشَيْء
Arabizishay'
Translationthing, anything, a thing, Something
TypeMasculine noun
Audio
Native speaker, MSA
Letter by letter

The word, broken down.

شَيْء reads right to left. Below, in reading order, each letter — its sound, its shape, its place in the syllable.

01
Letter
ش
shīn
sh

The 'sh' in 'ship'. Three teeth with three dots above.

Type:A
02
Diacritic
ـَ
fatḥa
a

A short 'a' — a small stroke written above the letter.

Type:Shift+Q
03
Letter
ي
yāʾ
y / ī

A 'y' — or a long 'i' vowel when it carries no vowel of its own.

Type:D
04
Letter
ء
hamza
ʾ

A glottal stop — the catch in the middle of 'uh-oh'.

Type:X
← First letter shown leftmost; the actual word is read right-to-left in script.
How to type it

The keystrokes, in order.

On a standard Arabic 101 / Arabic-PC layout — 5 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 →
Sequence
  1. 01Aش
  2. 02Shift+Qـَfatḥa
  3. 03Dي
  4. 04Shift+Xـْ
  5. 05Xء
Composedشَيْء
شَيْء
Practice

Type شَيْء until your fingers know it.

Or practice it inside the full Education session.

Practice just shay'Start the Education set