Type Arabic With English Letters
Type an Arabic word into the box above the way it sounds, using ordinary English letters, like shokran. A suggested Arabic spelling appears below the box, sometimes with up to six to choose from. Nothing is replaced on its own: pick the one you meant, or dismiss it and your text stays exactly as you wrote it. Your own keys stay in English. This is not translation: it turns the sound of an Arabic word into Arabic letters. It does not turn English words into their Arabic meaning.
- Type an Arabic word the way it sounds, using English letters, like shokran, habibi, kitab.
- Look at the suggested Arabic spelling below the box. There may be up to six to choose from.
- Apply the one you meant. Dismiss leaves your typed text exactly as you wrote it.
There are two ways to write Arabic sounds with English letters. This page covers the ordinary kind, spelled with letters alone. Chat Arabic also uses numbers for sounds English letters can't spell: 3 for ع, 7 for ح, and 9 for either ص or قdepending on the writing convention. That's a different convention. See converting Arabizi to Arabic to learn about it.
Typing and suggestions are processed locally in your browser. The magnifying-glass keys search the current text on Google or YouTube; text is shared with the chosen service only when you activate that search. Read the privacy details
Examples
- shokranشكرا"thank you"
- habibiحبيبي"my dear"
- kitabكتاب"book"
Reference table
Here are some letter groups you can use. Short vowels do not always need a separate Arabic letter. The tool looks at the whole word to suggest a spelling.
| English letters | Arabic letter |
|---|---|
| sh | ش |
| kh | خ |
| gh | غ |
| th | ث / ذ |
| ee | ي |
| oo | و |
Supported layouts and modes
- English-convention letter groups (sh, kh, gh, th, ee, oo, aa, ii, and more)
- Up to six different Arabic spellings when more than one word could be right. You choose the one you meant
- URLs, emails, hashtags, usernames, numbers, and existing Arabic are never converted
- Direct Arabic typing gets its own spelling suggestions from the same shared dictionary
Limitations
- Some sounds and short vowels can be hard to recognise. The word you want may not be first in the list.
- One letter alone is too unclear to convert. Type at least two letters before a suggestion appears.
- The suggestions may take a little longer the first time. If loading fails, you may see fewer choices or none. You can still use the Arabic keys on screen.
- For French-language conventions, see the dedicated French page on ClavierArabe.ai instead.
How we tested the suggestions
We tested how often the Arabic word you want shows up in the suggestions.
| Test | Correct examples | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Test 1 — 5,009 examples | 3,727 of 5,009 | 74.41% |
| Test 1: examples set aside for testing | 2,125 of 2,993 | 71.00% |
| Test 2 — 2,282 examples | 2,163 of 2,282 | 94.79% |
| Test 2: words missing from the checked word list | 690 of 785 | 87.90% |
The smaller groups are part of the test above them. They are not extra examples.
The 2,993 examples were originally set aside for testing. They have since been used to check several versions. The group of 785 contains words missing from the word list we checked.
We counted an example as correct when the word we wanted appeared among the choices, and choosing it changed the right part of the text. There could be up to six choices.
About these tests
English and French results, from the same two tests above. "English" and "French" mean which keyboard convention was typed — not the reader's nationality or the language of the word itself.
| Test | English | French |
|---|---|---|
| Test 1 — 5,009 examples | 1,787 of 2,398 = 74.52% | 1,940 of 2,611 = 74.30% |
| Test 1: examples set aside for testing | 1,030 of 1,440 = 71.53% | 1,095 of 1,553 = 70.51% |
| Test 2 — 2,282 examples | 1,093 of 1,140 = 95.88% | 1,070 of 1,142 = 93.70% |
- The list you see combines two different ways of finding a word, then removes repeats, before it is shown to you. These results count up to six choices, not just the first three.
- We used different examples in each test. That can affect the score.
- Some examples were already familiar to the system. Others were not in the word list we checked against. Being absent from that list does not mean an example was missing from everything the system learned from.
- These tests have already been used to check this release. They are not fresh, untouched tests.
- Some examples may appear in both tests, so their totals are not simply added together as if every one were different.
- These scores do not tell us how often every future word will be right, and we did not use them to compare with other websites.
- Sometimes the word you want is missing from the list. You always choose what goes into your text.
- These results are from the version released on 15 September 2026 (commit 5ee567d).
Updated: