ma3jun alasnan
the toothpasteThe word, broken down.
مَعْجون اَلْأَسْنان reads right to left. Below, each letter in reading order, with its sound and the keys that type it.
A plain 'm'. A small round head with a tail.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A voiced sound from deep in the throat. Arabizi writes it '3'.
A soft 'j' (a hard 'g' in Egyptian Arabic). One dot inside.
A 'w', or a long 'u' vowel when it carries no vowel of its own.
A plain 'n'. A deep bowl with one dot above.
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 glottal stop carried on an alif.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 's'. Three small teeth in a row.
A plain 'n'. A deep bowl with one dot above.
A long 'a' vowel. A single upright stroke, and the first letter of the alphabet.
A plain 'n'. A deep bowl with one dot above.
What does ma3jun alasnan mean in Arabizi?
ma3jun alasnan is how you write مَعْجون اَلْأَسْنان in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “the toothpaste”.
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 — 19 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 food & drink 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 →- 01L→م
- 02Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 03U→ع
- 04Shift+X→ـْ
- 05[→ج
- 06,→و
- 07K→ن
- 08Space→
- 09H→ا
- 10Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 11G→ل
- 12Shift+X→ـْ
- 13Shift+H→أ
- 14Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 15S→س
- 16Shift+X→ـْ
- 17K→ن
- 18H→ا
- 19K→ن