fi aya sa3a
at what timeThe word, broken down.
في أَيّة ساعة reads right to left. Below, each letter in reading order, with its sound and the keys that type it.
A plain 'f'. One dot above a small loop.
A 'y', or a long 'i' vowel when it carries no vowel of its own.
A glottal stop carried on an alif.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A 'y', or a long 'i' vowel when it carries no vowel of its own.
Doubles the letter it sits on; hold the consonant a beat longer.
The 'tied tāʾ'. It marks a feminine ending, sounded as a soft 'a'.
A plain 's'. Three small teeth in a row.
A long 'a' vowel. A single upright stroke, and the first letter of the alphabet.
A voiced sound from deep in the throat. Arabizi writes it '3'.
The 'tied tāʾ'. It marks a feminine ending, sounded as a soft 'a'.
What does fi aya sa3a mean in Arabizi?
fi aya sa3a is how you write في أَيّة ساعة in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “at what time”.
The 3 stands for ع (ayn): a throaty sound. No clean English equivalent. 3 is a mirrored ع.
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 — 13 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 travel & places 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 →- 01T→ف
- 02D→ي
- 03Space→
- 04Shift+H→أ
- 05Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 06D→ي
- 07Shift+`→ـّshadda
- 08M→ة
- 09Space→
- 10S→س
- 11H→ا
- 12U→ع
- 13M→ة