ghariba
weirdThe word, broken down.
غَريبة reads right to left. Below, each letter in reading order, with its sound and the keys that type it.
A gargled 'r', like the French 'r'. Like ʿayn, with a dot above.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A rolled 'r', closer to Spanish than English.
A 'y', or a long 'i' vowel when it carries no vowel of its own.
A plain 'b'. A tooth-shaped body with one dot below.
The 'tied tāʾ'. It marks a feminine ending, sounded as a soft 'a'.
What does ghariba mean in Arabizi?
ghariba is how you write غَريبة in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “weird”. 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 — 6 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 greetings & introductions 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 →- 01Y→غ
- 02Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 03V→ر
- 04D→ي
- 05F→ب
- 06M→ة