almaktab
the officeThe word, broken down.
اَلْمَكْتَب reads right to left. Below, each letter in reading order, with its sound and the keys that type it.
A long 'a' vowel. A single upright stroke, and the first letter of the alphabet.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'l'. A tall upright stroke with a curved foot.
A plain 'm'. A small round head with a tail.
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 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'b'. A tooth-shaped body with one dot below.
What does almaktab mean in Arabizi?
almaktab is how you write اَلْمَكْتَب in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “the office”. 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 — 11 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 jobs & work 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 →- 01H→ا
- 02Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 03G→ل
- 04Shift+X→ـْ
- 05L→م
- 06Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 07;→ك
- 08Shift+X→ـْ
- 09J→ت
- 10Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 11F→ب