tatakallam
she speaks, you speakThe word, broken down.
تَتَكَلَّم 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 '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 short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'l'. A tall upright stroke with a curved foot.
Doubles the letter it sits on; hold the consonant a beat longer.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'm'. A small round head with a tail.
What does tatakallam mean in Arabizi?
tatakallam is how you write تَتَكَلَّم in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “she speaks, you speak”. 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 — 10 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 time 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
- 03J→ت
- 04Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 05;→ك
- 06Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 07G→ل
- 08Shift+`→ـّshadda
- 09Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 10L→م
Getting the sounds right.
Four syllables: ta-ta-KAL-lam. The stress sits on KAL, and the l is doubled, so hold it a moment before letting go. All four vowels are the short a of "cat". The two ta's at the front aren't a stutter. The first one marks who is speaking and the second belongs to the verb.
Example sentences.
Sentences using تَتَكَلَّم, 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.
tatakallam is two rows of that table at once: “you speak” to a man, and “she speaks”. Arabic leaves it to the sentence to say which. Day to day you'll hear tihki in the Levant and titkallim in Egypt, but everyone understands tatakallam.