a7taj ila
I needThe word, broken down.
أَحْتاج إِلى reads right to left. Below, each letter in reading order, with its sound and the keys that type it.
A glottal stop carried on an alif.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A breathy h from deep in the throat, heavier than an English 'h'.
A plain 't'. The same body as bāʾ, but with two dots above.
A long 'a' vowel. A single upright stroke, and the first letter of the alphabet.
A soft 'j' (a hard 'g' in Egyptian Arabic). One dot inside.
A glottal stop carried under an alif, with a short 'i'.
A short 'i', written as a small stroke below the letter.
A plain 'l'. A tall upright stroke with a curved foot.
A dotless yāʾ that sounds like a long 'a'; only ever at a word's end.
What does a7taj ila mean in Arabizi?
a7taj ila is how you write أَحْتاج إِلى in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “I need”.
The 7 stands for ح (ḥa): a breathy h, deeper than English h. 7 bends the way ح bends.
For the rest of the chat alphabet, see 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 — 12 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 clothes 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 →- 01Shift+H→أ
- 02Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 03P→ح
- 04Shift+X→ـْ
- 05J→ت
- 06H→ا
- 07[→ج
- 08Space→
- 09Shift+Y→إ
- 10Shift+A→ـِkasra
- 11G→ل
- 12N→ى