taktubi
you writeThe word, broken down.
تَكْتُبي reads right to left. Below, each letter in reading order, with its sound and the keys that type it.
A plain 't'. The same body as bāʾ, but with two dots above.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'k'.
A plain 't'. The same body as bāʾ, but with two dots above.
A short 'u', written as a small loop above the letter.
A plain 'b'. A tooth-shaped body with one dot below.
A 'y', or a long 'i' vowel when it carries no vowel of its own.
What does taktubi mean in Arabizi?
taktubi is how you write تَكْتُبي in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “you write”. 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 — 8 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 →- 01J→ت
- 02Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 03;→ك
- 04Shift+X→ـْ
- 05J→ت
- 06Shift+E→ـُḍamma
- 07F→ب
- 08D→ي
Getting the sounds right.
Three short syllables, TAK-tu-bi, with the weight on the first. The a in "tak" is the a of "cat". The u is the short u of "put", never the long oo of "boot". The final i is clipped. In careful formal Arabic the word stretches to taktubīna, but that ending drops in speech and after words like لا and أن, so taktubi is the form you'll actually hear.
Example sentences.
Sentences using تَكْتُبي, 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.
taktub does double duty: “you write” to a man, and “she writes”. Only the context tells you which. The formal feminine form is taktubin (تَكْتُبين), and the -n drops after لا, لن and أن, which leaves taktubi. Spoken Arabic drops it everywhere, so taktubi is what you'll hear.